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Our Little Danish Cousin 


THE 

Little Cousin Series 

(trade mark) 

Each volume illustrated with six or more full-page plates in 
tint. Cloth, I 2mo, with decorative cover, 
per volume, 6 o cents 

LIST OF TITLES 

By Mary Hazelton Wade 

(unless otherwise indicated) 


Our Little African Cousin 
Our Little Alaskan Cousin 

liy Mary F. Nixon-Roulet 

Our Little Arabian Cousin 

By Blanche McManus 
Our Little Argentine Cousin 
By Eva Canon Brooks 
Our Little Armenian Cousin 
Our Little Australian Cousin 

By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet 

Our Little Belgian Cousin 

By Blanche McManus 

Our Little Bohemian Cousin 
By Clara V. Winlow 
Our Little Brazilian Cousin 

By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet 

Our Little Brown Cousin 
Our Little Canadian Cousin 

Bv Elizabeth R. MacDonald 

Our Little Chinese Cousin 

By Isaac Taylor Headland 

Our Little Cuban Cousin 
Our Little Danish Cousin 

By Luna May Innes 
Our Little Dutch Cousin 

By Blanche McManus 
Our Little Egyptian Cousin 

By Blanche McManus 

Our Little English Cousin 

By Blanche McManus 
Our Little Eskimo Cousin 
Our Little French Cousin 

By Blanche McManus 
Our Little German Cousin 
Oar Little Grecian Cousin 

By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet 


Our Little Hawaiian Cousin 
Our Little Hindu Cousin 

By Blanche McManus 

Our Little Hungarian Cousin 

By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet 

Our Little Indian Cousin 
Our Little Irish Cousin 
Our Little Italian Cousin 
Our Little Japanese Cousin 
Our Little Jewish Cousin 
Our Little Korean Cousin 

By H. Lt-e M. Pike 
Our Little Mexican Cousin 
By Edward C. Butler 
Our Little Norwegian Cousin 
Our Little Panama Cousin 

By H. Lee M. Pike 
Our Little Persian Cousin 

By E. C Shedd 
Our Little Philippine Cousin 
Our Little Polish Cousin 

By Florence E. Mendel 
Our Little Porto Rican Cousin 
Our Little PortugueseCousin 
By Edith A. Sawyer 
Our Little Russian Cousin 
Our Little Scotch Cousin 

By Blanche McManus 

Our Little Siamese Cousin 
Our Little Spanish Cousin 

By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet 

Our Little Swedish Cousin 

Bv Claire M. Coburn 

Our Little Swiss Cousin 
Our Little T urkish Cousin 




L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 

53 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. 





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“Little children were playing about the 

STATUED FORM OF THEIR BELOVED STORY- 
TELLER, Hans Christian Andersen ” 

{se^e page 52 ) 




3: OUR little t 

t DANISH COUSIN | 


rif 

❖ 


By 

Luna May Innes 


Illustrated by 

Elizabeth Otis 


❖ 

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Boston 

L. C. Page & Company 

MDCCCCXir 




Copyright, igi2, 

By L. C. Page & Company 

(incorporated) 

All rights reserved 


First Impression, June, 1912 


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£cU3iG834 



TO MY LITTLE NEPHEW 

(Sraeme lo rimer 


ON HIS NINTH BIRTHDAY 


1 


Preface 


Denmark means “ Land of dark woods.” 
Although one of the smallest states of Europe, 
the little kingdom of Denmark holds a very 
large place in the world’s history, having sup- 
plied rulers for many of the countries of Eu- 
rope. 

The Dane loves his beautiful country, the 
land of Thorvaldsen and of Hans Christian 
Andersen, of blue lakes, and “ fairy-tale ” cas- 
tles. 

Since the days of Leif and Biarne, Denmark 
and the United States have been allied, and 
therefore I feel sure that the children of Amer- 
ica will be interested in the story of their little 
Danish Cousin. 

vii 


Vlll 


Preface 


I wish to express grateful acknowledgment 
to Hr. Georg Beck, Consul for Denmark in 
Chicago; also to Mr. Haakon Arntz, and to 
Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Andersen, for generous 
information given in regard to the manners and 
customs of the Danish people. 

Luna May Innes. 


Chicago, February^ igi2. 


Contents 


CHAPTER * PAGE 



Preface 

vii 

1. 

The Distinguished Visitor 

I 

IL 

Copenhagen 

22 

III. 

“ Hurrah for King Frederik! ” . 

48 

IV. 

Up the Sound to Hamlet’s Castle 

59 

V. 

“ Fairy - tale ” Castles and Pal- 



aces 

73 

VI. 

The Legend of the Sacred “ Dan- 



NEBROG ” 

82 

VII. 

The Story of the Danish “ Ahl- 



HEDE ” 

100 

VIII. 

Skagen 

117 

IX. 

A Danish Peasant Wedding . 

134 

X. 

JuL - TIDE AT Grandmother Inge- 



mann’s 

144 


MANN S . 



List of Illu strations 


Little children were playing about 

THE STATUED FORM OF THEIR BELOVED 
STORY - TELLER, HaNS CHRISTIAN An- 
DERSEN ” (see page 52) . . Frontispiece 

Valdemar burst into the room ” . . 13 

Where jolly - looking women with 

QUAINT HEADDRESSES WERE SELLING 
THEIR WARES ” 35 

They spread them on the grass in the 

SHADOW OF THE GREAT BRICK TOWER ” . QO 

In the centre of the studio stood the 

UNFINISHED STATUE OF THE LITTLE 

Crown Prince” 119 

‘Welcome! and Glaedelig JulI^ called 
OUT BOTH Grandfather and Grand- 
mother Ingemann ” 145 




Our Little Danish Cousin 


CHAPTER I 

THE DISTINGUISHED VISITOR 

“Hurtig! kaere Karen, mit lommetor- 
klaede! 

Fru Oberstinde Ingemann and her little 
flaxen-haired daughter, Karen, were sitting at 
their embroidery work in the deep window-seat 
that made one whole side of the cozy Ingemann 
living-room overlooking the Botanical Gardens. 
Between stitches, Karen was watching the rain 
patter on the little diamond window-panes, now 
and then pausing to take a quick look at some 
favorite newly-blossomed flower in the brilliant, 
long line of window-boxes which bordered the 


2 Our Little Danish Cousin 

windows “ like a long bright ribbon,” as Karen 
said. 

The bell rang. 

Hurtig! kaere Karen, mit lommetor- 
klaede!^^ sounds like something terrible, but 
Fru Ingemann was only saying in Danish: 
“ Quick, dear Karen, my handkerchief! ” 

“ Thank you, Karen,” said the lady, as the 
fair child replaced the sheer bit of linen in her 
mother’s hand with a pretty courtesy, for Karen 
was a well-bred little girl. 

It was a morning of excitement for Fru Else 
Ingemann. Two important letters had come to 
her from over the seas. One had come from 
Chicago in far-away America, saying that her 
brother-in-law, the Hon. Oscar Hoffman, was 
coming once more to pay a visit to dear old 
Denmark. Mr. Hoffman was an important 
man in America. He was the president of the 
“ Danish-American National Park ” in north 
Jutland, and it was in his loyal Danish brain 


The Distinguished Visitor 3 

that the whole idea of the great Park had orig- 
inated. It had been his dream to save to the 
glory of Denmark, for all time to come, a won- 
derful, wild tract of heather-covered hills 
where, year by year, thousands of loyal Danish- 
Americans might meet in the Fatherland, and 
celebrate America’s Independence Day on Da- 
nish soil. At last the Park was a reality, and 
he was coming to make necessary arrangements. 

He was bringing his son, Karl, with him, 
and, while they were to be in Copenhagen, they 
would spend their time with the Ingemanns. 
He hoped that the little cousins would become 
great friends. They would arrive in Copen- 
hagen on Saturday. To-day was Thursday. 

The other exciting message came from Fru 
Ingemann’s favorite brother. Hr. Thorvald 
Svensen. It was postmarked Rome, Italy, and 
informed her that at last he was coming back 
to live in his dear old home in Copenhagen, and 
that he would arrive on that day. 


4 


Our Little Danish Cousin 


Hr. Svensen had been living in Rome for 
eight long years, and in those years of per- 
sistent, hard work he had finally realized his 
one great ambition, and become Denmark’s 
greatest sculptor — greatest, at least, since the 
day of Denmark’s beloved Thorvaldsen, whose 
namesake he was. 

To Fru Ingemann there was no more wel- 
come news in all the world. His letter said 
that he longed to see her and the children once 
more. 

Little Valdemar, who was the sculptor’s 
godson, was wild with joy. “ Let me stay 
home from school to-day, mother I” he im- 
plored. 

“ No, no, Valdemar,” firmly answered his 
mother, as she handed him his school luncheon, 
a box of delicious smorrehrod} When Valde- 
mar’s mother said ‘‘No, no,” he knew that 

further protests were useless. So He kissed her 
’The ereat Danish national dish. 


The Distinguished Visitor 5 

and was off, calling back: “ Good-bye, mother 
dear; keep Gudfar^ Thor until I come home 
from school, please!^* 

All that morning Fru Ingemann flew about 
in happy expectancy, making more cozy the 
pretty little apartment. Karen could hear her 
mother, as she worked, singing softly those 
familiar old lines from Baggesen, the well- 
known Danish poet: 

“ Ah, nowhere is the rose so red, 

Nowhere so small the thorn, 

Nowhere so soft the downy bed 
As those where we were born.” 

Above the patter of the rain came the sound 
of approaching carriage wheels. Fru Inge- 
mann paused. 

“ Quick, Karen, — the bell I It may be 
Uncle Thor I” 

And so it proved ! All the eight, long, lone- 
some years since she had last seen this dear 
1 Godfather. 



6 Our Little Danish Cousin 

brother, years in which she had lost her hus- 
band, were quickly forgotten in his great hearty 
embrace. 

Min kaere Soster! ” 

** Min kaere Broder!*^ 

Their hearts were so full they could not find 
words. 

Karen, tiptoeing, wanted to fling her tiny 
arms about her big, yellow-bearded. Viking-like, 
Uncle Thor’s neck, so he lifted the little maid 
high in his strong arms and kissed her. 

“ Ah, Karen, min lille skat! ^ How you have 
grown ! ” he said affectionately. Soft yellow 
curls framed her pretty face, and two heavy 
braids of the same glorious hair hung far down 
her back. “ Why, you were just a little, two- 
year-old baby when I went away to Rome, and 
now, I’ve no doubt, you are dreaming of a 
boarding-school off in France or Switzerland 

one of these days ! ” 

^“My little treasure” 


The Distinguished Visitor 7 

But Karen only shook her little blond head 
and laughed, while Uncle Thor’s beauty-loving 
eye beamed on the dainty little damsel in white 
embroidered frock, half-hose and slippers, as 
he settled himself comfortably in the big arm- 
chair near the great, green-tiled stove, whose 
top almost touched the living-room ceiling. 

“ Congratulations, dear brother,” said Fru 
Ingemann. “ Why didn’t you write us all about 
the great honor you have brought to the fam- 
ily? I saw in this morning’s ‘ Nationaltidende,’ 
that you have just been appointed Court 
Painter to His Majesty, the King! It is the 
greatest honor that can come to a Danish artist 
I am so proud of you 1 ” 

‘‘ It is true,” he acknowledged, briefly, “ but 
tell me, sister Else, how are the boys, Aage and 
Valdemar? ” 

“ Oh, Aage is now a big boy of sixteen, off 
doing his eight years of compulsory military 
service in the army. Aage will grow up with a 


8 Our Little Danish Cousin 


straighter back and a better trained body be- 
cause of his soldiering days. He will be home 
for Christmas with us.” 

“And Valdemar?” 

“ Valdemar is only thirteen, but he is in his 
second year at the Metropolitan School, one of 
the best State Latin Schools in all Denmark. 
He will be back home at three o’clock. I could 
hardly get him to consent to go to school at all, 
this morning, after he was told that his Gud- 
far Thor was coming.” 

“ And Karen studies with her private tutors, 
here, at home? ” 

“ Yes, Thorvald, besides learning to be a 
good little housekeeper, as well. But you must 
be both hungry and tired. It is nearly twelve 
o’clock. Come, Karen, help me spread the 
table with something good for Frokost,^ for 
Uncle Thor.” 

A cloth of snowy damask was quickly spread 


* Breakfast 


The Distinguished Visitor 9 

with various viands and meats; tongue, salad, 
salmon, anchovies, plates of butter, with trays 
containing French (white) bread, and other 
trays full of thin slices of rye bread, which 
is such a favorite with all Danes. Fru Inge- 
mann then placed a bottle of beer beside Hr. 
Svensen’s plate, and brought in the steaming 
hot tea, which she herself poured into the 
delicate cups of that wonderful crystalline ware, 
the famous Royal Copenhagen porcelain — a 
set doubly cherished by her as an heirloom in 
her family for many generations. 

Karen, who could herself make delicious tea, 
loved to gaze at the fascinatingly delicate dec- 
oration of the cups, which looked, as she said, 
“like frost on the window-pane;” but she 
never was allowed to touch this precious set of 
old Royal Copenhagen, of which not one piece 
had yet been broken. 

“And smorrehrod, brother?” politely urged 
Fru Ingemann, for no good Danish housewife 


lo Our Little Danish Cousin 

would ever think of inviting any one to 
breakfast without having smorrehrod on the 
table. 

“ Thanks, sister Else,” replied the hungry 
artist, who immediately set about thickly 
spreading butter — famous Danish butter — 
over a slice of rye bread, as did also Karen 
and her mother, after which each proceeded to 
select the particular kind of fish or meat pre- 
ferred, and, arranging it upon the slice of but- 
tered bread, ate it much as we would a sand- 
wich. Uncle Thor made an especially delicious 
one for Karen, who had already become a great 
favorite with him. 

Frokost over, Fru Ingemann arose, and, 
bowing slightly to her brother, said: ^^Velhe- 
komme! ” ^ And Hr. Svensen did the 
same. 

*^Tak for Mad, Moder,” ^ said Karen courte- 

*“Well may it agree with you.” 

Thank you for the food, mother.” 


The Distinguished Visitor ii 

sying first to her mother and then to her Uncle 
Thor, and kissing them both — a beautiful old 
Danish custom. 

Uncle Thor was a great lover of flowers. 
To-day there were beautiful flowers on the 
table, in the windows, everywhere! In fact, 
the whole Ingemann apartment seemed over- 
whelmed with the loveliness of them. Besides 
the vases, there were little flower-pots galore, 
all decked in brightly-colored paper, some con- 
taining blooming plants, others, little growing 
trees. 

“ Ah, Karen, has there been a birthday 
here?” asked Uncle Thor, in mock surprise. 
“ Run out in the hall and see what came all the 
way from Naples, Italy, to Frederiksberg-Alle, 
in Copenhagen, for a good little girl with long 
pigtails.” 

Karen came running back with a tiny white 
kid box in her hand. Opening it, she beheld 
the most beautiful set imaginable of pale pink 


12 


Our Little Danish Cousin 


corals. She just couldn’t wait to put the neck- 
lace on before hugging her dear old Uncle 
Thor, who himself had to fasten the pretty 
chain around her slender little neck for 
her. 

“Yes, Uncle Thor, we had a splendid time, 
and mother gave us chocolate, tea and cakes, 
and this is what all the boys and girls at my 
party yesterday sang: 


“^London Bridge is broken down, 

Gold is won and bright renown, 

Shields resounding, war-homs sounding, 

Hild is shouting in the din. 

Arrows singing, 

Mailcoats ringing, 

Odin makes our Olaf win/ ” 

Karen had hardly finished singing her song 
describing the days of old, when there had been 
a mighty encounter on London Bridge between 
the Danes and King Olaf the Saint, ending in 
the burning of the bridge, when there came a 
sudden great clatter and uproar on the stairs, 
with the loud barking of a dog, and the sound 


1 







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The Distinguished Visitor 13 

of a boy’s heavy boots, and Valdemar burst into 
the room. 

“ Oh, my dear, dear Gudfar Thor! ” he ex- 
claimed, throwing his arms tight round his 
uncle’s neck. 

“ Why, Valdemar, you are the very image of 
your father 1 ” exclaimed Hr. Svensen. “ Don’t 
you think so, sister Else?” he questioned, as 
he gazed admiringly at the sturdy, big frame, 
rumpled flaxen hair, and the merry twinkle 
In the honest blue Danish eyes of his god- 
son. 

“ Oh, yes, Thorvald, Valdemar certainly Is 
the Image of his father. The King thinks so, 
too,” agreed Fru Ingemann. 

“ King Frederik? Why, how Is that, sister? 
Has the king never forgotten Valdemar?” 
questioned Hr. Svensen In surprise. 

“ Oh, Thorvald, you know the King’s won- 
derful memory. It never fails him. And you 
must remember the great friendship that al- 


14 Our Little Danish Cousin 

ways existed between my dear husband and King 
Frederik, from the days when’ as boys to- 
gether, they went through the Military College; 
and later both were recruits in the same regi- 
ment, and had to do sentry duty, turn about, 
outside his grandfather’s palace. Only the 
other day, Valdemar came bounding into the 
house, overjoyed, to tell me that he had just 
passed their Majesties, King Frederik and 
Queen Lowisa, out walking on the Langelinie,^ 
entirely unattended, and that, when he doffed 
his cap to the King, his Majesty immediately 
returned his salute, with a friendly smile I ” 

“ But, sister Else, how do you know that 
King Frederik thinks Valdemar the image of 
his father? I don’t understand,” persisted Hr. 
Svensen, perplexed. 

“We know!” Fru Ingemann spoke softly 
as she recalled days long gone. 

“ Valdemar was only a little child when his 


Long Line. 


The Distinguished Visitor 15 

father died,” she continued. ‘‘ His father had 
always taught Valdemar to love the King, and 
he does so with all his boyish little heart. An 
accident, a broken arm, soon afterwards put 
the child in the Queen Lowisa Children’s Hos- 
pital, where, as you know, King Frederik makes 
a monthly visit to cheer the little sufferers. The 
King loves children. They say that not one 
little baby-face ever escapes him, and that he 
even notes each child’s improvement from time 
to time. 

“ Valdemar, in his little cot near the door, 
heard the nurses saying: ‘The King comes to- 
day I ’ 

“ His little mind was all expectation. Finally, 
the King arrived. Valdemar was the first little 
patient to see him enter, silk hat in his hand 
as usual. Sick as he was, the boy drew himself 
quickly from out of the covers, stood up in the 
middle of his bed, and saluted his King with 
a low bow, so low that his forehead almost 


1 6 Our Little Danish Cousin 


touched his pillow. The King paused in sur- 
prise at Valdemar’s cot and spoke: 

“ ‘ My child, why do you do that? Why do 
you salute me ? ’ 

“‘Because I like you I You are the 
King!’ 

“ They say that the King looked into the 
child’s face a moment, drew his hand to his 
eyes, lost in thought, then, turning quickly to 
Prince Christian, who accompanied him, ex- 
claimed with a smile : 

“ ‘ Dll ligner din Fader! Oh, vilde jeg onske 
at din Fader levedel Gid Legligheden maa 
komme til at hjdlpe denne opvagte Dreng, for 
min kdre gamle V en Ingemann^s Skyldf * ^ 

“ Then, placing his hand on the child’s 
golden locks, he spoke tenderly: ‘Yes, little 
Valdemar Ingemann, I am the King. Always 

^ “ The face of his father ! Oh, that his father were 
still living ! May the opportunity some day be given me 
to benefit this bright boy, for my dear old friend Inge- 
mann’s sake ! ” 


The Distinguished Visitor 17 

remember that your father and I were great 
friends/ and he passed on. 

“ Valdemar has never forgotten that mo- 
ment. He never will. You and the King are 
the two great heroes of the world in his eyes.” 

“Where is he now? Come, Valdemar! 
Tell me all about what you like most to read,” 
called Uncle Thor. 

“ Oh, Uncle Thor, I love to read in the old 
Sagas and Chronicles all about the mighty sea- 
fights of the Vikings, and about the glorious 
battles of the Valdemars, in the books that 
Aage left me. They make me want to be a 
soldier. Then I love to read everything about 
Linnaeus, who loved the trees and the flowers 
and the whole outdoors just as I do. But, best 
of all, rd rather become a famous sculptor like 
my Godfather Thor! I’d like that better than 
anything else in all the world! See, Uncle 
Thor, I’ve modelled some little things already. 
Here is one, — my Great Dane, Frederik, — 


1 8 Our Little Danish Cousin 


and here Is a stork, and here is a little Viking 
ship. They’re not very good, but — ” 

“ Oh, min lille Billedhugger ! ^ Interrupted 
Hr. Svensen, with feeling, as he took the little 
toy animals from Valdemar to examine them. 
“ This is not half bad work. But what have 
you done them in, my boy? ” 

“ In pie-paste ! ” laughed his mother. “ I 
have to hide the pie-paste when I’m baking, 
to keep Valdemar from slipping It off to use 
for modelling! ” 

“ Valdemar, you shall have some modelling 
clay. Thorvaldsen once made the Lion of Lu- 
cerne In butter. I must tell you that story some 
day,” said Hr. Svensen, as he patted his little 
nephew’s head affectionately. 

There was a sharp ring at the bell. 

Karen flew to the door, then back to her 
mother, excitedly exclaiming: “A box and a 
letter for you, mother 1 ” 


‘ “ My little sculptor.’ 


The Distinguished Visitor ig 

Fru Ingemann tore the note open and read: 
“Will be expelled if it occurs again!” The 
words swam before her eyes. 

“ Oh, Valdemar, my son, come explain all 
this to me at once! It is from your Latin 
teacher. Surely there is some mistake. It is 
not like my boy I ” 

Meantime Karen had opened the box, and 
displayed a most laughable clay caricature of 
Valdemar’s Latin teacher, with the word 
“ TEACHER ” scratched underneath in large 
letters. She burst out giggling. Even Uncle 
Thor’s look of mock horror soon gave way 
before the cleverly done effigy, and he laughed. 
He had been a boy once himself, and it was 
funny. 

“ Well, that’s exactly the way teacher 
looks ! ” vehemently protested Valdemar in self- 
justification. “ Indeed he does. Ask Hendrik 
i>r any of the boys. None of us like him one 
bit, and at recess to-day Hendrik drew chalk 


20 Our Little Danish Cousin 

cartoons of teacher all over the blackboard, 
and said: ‘ Oh, Valdemar, you’d never dare do 
it in clay 1 ’ 

“‘Yes, I would dare do it in clay I’ I an- 
swered him, and then, mother, — I did it. But 
I didn’t mean Hr. Professor Christiansen to see 
it. I’m glad school’s over for all summer on 
Friday I” 

Even Valdemar’s mother had to laugh, as 
Uncle Thor took the offending statuette in his 
hand to give it a closer examination, for it was 
as irresistibly funny as it was clever. 

“Brilliant, Valdemar!” he exclaimed. 
“ Your work has merit. Work hard enough, 
my boy, and you may become a great artist, 
some day. You have the talent. Come over 
to my studio to-morrow morning. I’ll help you 
a little with your modelling, and then, after 
luncheon with me, I will take you through the 
Thorvaldsen Museum. Would you like that? 
And, by the way, I think there is something 


The Distinguished Visitor 21 

nice for you in my trunk. Now I am due at 
the Royal Palace. I must go and pay my re- 
spects to the King. He will be expecting me.” 

“ Oh, Uncle Thor, I’ll be there! ” called out 
Valdemar. “ Good-bye, Uncle Thor, good- 
bye!” 


CHAPTER II 


COPENHAGEN 

Summer bursts suddenly in Copenhagen. 
First, winter, with its deep snows, its fogs and 
frosts and thaws; then a few days of showers 
and a few of sunshine, Blinkeveir^ the Danes 
call this showery weather; and then, all at once, 
the bare trees throw out their tender green 
foliage and the spring flowers burst into life! 
The long cold winter is over. Even then, there 
sometimes come dense sea-mists which envelop 
Denmark’s capital, and only vanish with the 
sun’s warm rays. So Copenhageners have a 
popular weather saying: 

" ‘ Monday’s weather till mid-day is the 
week’s weather till Friday, 

Friday’s weather is Sunday’s weather, 

Saturday has its own weather.” 

^ Blinking weather. 

22 


Copenhagen 23 

Saturday’s weather fortunately proved ideal, 
a rare June day. Copenhagen’s beautiful Pub- 
lic Gardens and Parks were all aglow with fra- 
grant, blossoming spring flowers. Valdemar’s 
school was at last over. 

“ Now to the woods ! ” he cried in joy. 
“ And, mother dear, can’t we keep Cousin Karl 
all summer with us up at our country place on 
the Strandvej,^ while Uncle Oscar has to be 
away in Jutland attending to that Park of his? 
But I should like to be there with him when they 
have their big American Fourth of July celebra- 
tion, and see them raise their great Star Spangled 
Banner over our beloved flag! Wouldn’t you, 
Karl? Pve heard about the American ‘ Fourth,’ 
with the Stars and Stripes waving everywhere, 
and of the army manoeuvres and big times they 
have over there in the States on that historic 
day! But Denmark’s never had anything like 
it before, has she. Uncle Thor? ” 


I Sea-side. 


24 Our Little Danish Cousin 

They were in Fru Ingemann’s pretty dining- 
room having their twelve o’clock little frokost 
of tea and smorrehrod, this happy little party 
of six, for the American relatives had arrived. 

Early that morning, Valdemar and his Uncle 
Thor had hurried to the dock to meet the 
steamer, “ and, but for Uncle Oscar’s waving 
handkerchief, and his good memory for faces, 
we might have missed them entirely,” explained 
Valdemar, who was delighted with this first 
acquaintance with his new American cousin. 

With the first warm spring day, half of 
Copenhagen whitewashes her town house win- 
dows against the sun’s hot rays, and prepares 
to migrate farther north, to the famous 
Strandvej, where soft breezes from the blue 
Sound play all day over the broad sandy beach, 
and rustle through the leaves of the beech-trees 
in the Deer Park near by. Rich and poor alike 
own their own villas, country houses or little 
cottages, as the case may be, and these thickly 


Copenhagen 25 

dot the beautiful east Sound Shore all the way 
from Copenhagen to Elsinore, for great is the 
Dane’s love of at ligger pa Landet} 

Like all the rest, through wise and careful 
planning, Fru Ingemann had her little country 
place on the beautiful east Shore, where each 
summer Karen and Valdemar took long walks 
through the glorious beech-woods, went swim- 
ming, boating and bathing, made their own 
flower-gardens and dug in the ground to their 
hearts’ content. By the end of each short, 
happy summer, they were both as tanned and 
brown as the baskets of beech-nuts they gath- 
ered and brought back with them for the win- 
ter. 

“ We will have great times, if only Cousin 
Karl can come up for the summer with us I ” 
begged little Karen. 

“ I’ll think about it,” was the only promise 
they could get out of Uncle Oscar for the mo- 
^ Lingering in the country. 


26 Our Little Danish Cousin 

merit. “ Pm sure Karl would like it, but I’m 
not ready to decide anything just now.” 

“ If I’m not mistaken, the first thing Karl 
wants is to see some of the sights of Copen- 
hagen,” said Hr. Svensen, as they were leaving 
the breakfast table. ‘‘ Suppose we all go to- 
gether and give him a bird’s-eye view of Copen- 
hagen and the Harbor from the top of the 
Round Tower! How’s that, Karl?” 

“Great! Can’t we start right away?” said 
the little American, for Karl was a typical little 
Chicago boy, eager-minded and anxious to take 
in everything at once. 

“ And the Thorvaldsen Museum, Uncle 
Thor? Can’t we go back there again to-day? ” 
urged Valdemar, for the wondrous beauty of 
Thorvaldsen’s masterpieces still filled all his 
thoughts. On the way home from the Museum, 
the previous day, he had listened to fascinating 
stories told him by his godfather, stories about 
the “ Lion of Lucerne,” and about the little 


Copenhagen 27 

peasant boy who loved art, and worked hard, 
and finally became one of the world’s greatest 
sculptors. Valdemar couldn’t forget Thor- 
valdsen’s lovely “ Guardian Angel,” or his 
wonderful figure of “ Christ,” with its bowed 
head and arms outstretched in benediction, or 
the heavenly beauty of his “ Angel of the Bap- 
tism kneeling at Christ’s feet.” Never, thought 
Valdemar, had he seen anything half so beau- 
tiful in all his life ! Then, there were mighty 
gods and heroes, and graceful nymphs. “ And 
only think,” continued Valdemar, “ when Thor- 
valdsen was just a little boy eleven years old, 
— three years less than I am — he so loved his 
drawing and modelling that his father, who 
was a poor Icelandic ship-builder and carver of 
figureheads, placed him in school at the Acad- 
emy of Arts, where he won prize after prize, 
not stopping until he had gained even the great 
gold medal, together with the travelling schol- 
arship which took him to Italy to study. There 


28 Our Little Danish Cousin 

he worked hard day by day, from early dawn 
till dark without stopping. No wonder the 
great Museum is completely filled with master- 
pieces from his hand! ” 

“ Valdemar, my boy, you, too, shall enter as 
a student at the Academy next fall, if your work 
during the summer continues to show the talent 
and improvement that will justify my sending 
you. But that means you must work hard. I 
leave next week for my summer studio up at 
Skagen, but, until I go, you shall have a lesson 
each day, if you like, and more lessons up there 
all summer long, if you will come, for there 
is no little boy in all the world I would rather 
help than you, my Valdemar.” 

“ Oh, Uncle Thor ! ” cried Valdemar, throw- 
ing his arms around his godfather’s neck, wild 
with joy. “ I will begin to-morrow. And do 
you really mean that I am to study at the Acad- 
emy?” 

“ Yes, my little artist,” answered Hr. Sven- 


Copenhagen 29 

sen. “ And now let us start at once and see 
some of Copenhagen’s sights.” 

“ And will Fru Oberstinde not accompany 
us?” politely inquired Mr. Hoffman, of his 
sister-in-law. 

Danish wives and widows are given the same 
titles their husbands bear, so that Fru Inge- 
mann, who was the widow of a Colonel, or 
“ Oberst,” in the King’s army, was often 
addressed as “ Oberstinde,” or “ Colonel- 
ess.” 

“ Not to-day, thank you. Karen and I will 
wait for you at home,” said Fru Ingemann, 
smiling as she observed the big book in her 
child’s hands. “ You see what Karen is read- 
ing, Hans Christian Andersen’s fascinating 
* Billedhog unden Billeder/ ^ Be sure to be 
back in time for dinner,” she called as the party 
set off. 

** God Dag/* ^ said the tram conductor po- 

* “ Picture Book without Pictures.” * Good day. 


30 Our Little Danish Cousin 

litely as they entered. Karl smiled. Then he 
began to ask questions, for he had never crossed 
the ocean before, and never before had he seen 
any city like Copenhagen. Chicago certainly 
had its broad avenues, parks and boulevards, 
great skyscrapers and fine buildings; but Chi- 
cago had never dreamed of permitting its one 
great canal to run right up through the city 
streets, among the office buildings and houses, 
with all its shipping, launches and water-craft, 
as the Copenhagen canals all seemed to do in 
the friendliest possible fashion. 

“ Copenhagen must look much more like 
Amsterdam than like Athens, father. I can’t 
see why it is called the ‘ Athens of the North.’ 
I don’t see any Greek-looking buildings here,” 
protested Karl. 

“Yes,” agreed Karl’s father, who had once 
lived in Denmark long years ago. “ Copen- 
hagen may look much more like . Amsterdam, 
Karl; but, while you will not see build- 


Copenhagen 31 

ings here, nevertheless the title of ‘Athens’ 
comes justly, not only because of Copenhagen’s 
charming position on the borders of the Sound 
at the entrance to the Baltic, giving the city a 
great advantage commercially, and because of 
its beautifully wooded environs, but particu- 
larly on account of its splendid libraries, art 
galleries, museums and great university and 
schools, which rank among the best to be found 
anywhere in Europe. Before we reach the 
Round Tower we will doubtless get a view of 
some of these.” 

** Fa* vel** ^ said the tram conductor, bowing 
pleasantly to them as they got off at their des- 
tination. 

Karl laughed outright. “ Dear me ! In Chi- 
cago car conductors are given prizes for polite- 
ness, but I must say, none of them have ever 
yet reached the point of saying ‘ farewell ’ to 
you as you leave. I’m glad they don’t. Gee! 


* Farewell. 


32 Our Little Danish Cousin 

We’d never get anywhere in Chicago if we 
stopped for all that.” 

“ Half of Copenhagen seems to be out on the 
streets to-day,” remarked Mr. Hoffman, who 
had not been back to Denmark’s beautiful 
capital for so long that he had forgotten 
what a large city it was. “ Look, I believe 
that must be the New Picture Gallery, 
isn’t it?” 

“ You are right,” replied Hr. Svensen. 
“ Half the charm of Copenhagen must be traced 
to her museums and rich art treasures. Shall 
we give the boys a peep inside ? ” 

“ Oh, yes! ” exclaimed both boys at once, for 
Karl had pleasant memories of Saturday after- 
noons he had spent studying all the fine exhibits 
in the Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago. 
They had soon climbed the broad granite steps, 
and were walking through the long corridors 
and halls filled with great paintings, each bear- 
ing the artist’s name on the frame. 


Copenhagen 33 

“ The New Picture Gallery affords a good 
opportunity for studying Danish pictorial art, 
just as the New Glyptothek does for studying 
Danish sculpture,” said Hr. Svensen, as they 
were leaving. 

“What canal Is that?” asked Karl. “It 
certainly Is a pretty one, with that beautiful 
promenade and park along one side.” 

“ Yes, that is Holmen’s Canal, one of the 
finest In Copenhagen,” answered Hr. Svensen. 
It was full of ships and other water-craft 
“ And that marble building which looks like an 
Etruscan tomb Is the Thorvaldsen Museum, 
one of the principal attractions of Copenhagen. 
We shall have to take another day for that. 
But, just to please Valdemar, we will spend a 
moment inside the church where Thorvaldsen’s 
‘ Christ,’ the ‘ Angel of the Baptism * and ‘ The 
Twelve Apostles ’ are all standing in the places 
for which they were designed.” 

“ The Danes have accomplished much more 


34 Our Little Danish Cousin 

in sculpture than in painting, haven’t they, 
Uncle Thor?” Valdemar asked. 

“ Yes, you are quite right, Valdemar. Den- 
mark, as yet, has produced no painter to com- 
pare with Thorvaldsen.” 

They paused a moment at the New Raad- 
haus-plads, with its castellated roof, and paved 
semicircle in front, and again, near by, at the 
New City Hall. 

“ What an attractive part of Copenhagen 
this is,” remarked Karl, as he observed the 
many broad, fine, well-kept Pladser^^ with their 
electric cars gliding noiselessly back and forth 
with American celerity. “ Copenhagen seems 
to me a much cleaner, prettier city than Chi- 
cago, father. Don’t you think so? But where 
are its beggars? We’ve not yet seen one.” 

Hr. Svensen was quick to answer that they 
were not likely to see one. That Copenhagen, 
with a population of nearly five hundred thou- 
‘ Squares. 



“ Where jolly-looking women with quaint 

HEADDRESSES WERE SELLING THEIR WARES ” 



Copenhagen 35 

sand, has a pauper element of less than three 
per cent. “For the Danes are naturally a 
thrifty, industrious people, more than half of 
whom are farmers, and many also go to sea in 
ships,’’ explained Hr. Svensen. 

They took a tram down Stormgade over a 
bridge to the island of Slotsholmen, with its 
famous Fruit and Flower Market, where jolly- 
looking women with quaint headdresses were 
selling their wares; then over another bridge 
into Kongens Nytory, the King’s New Market. 

“ Here we are in a different world from that 
which we just left,” said Hr. Svensen. They 
had reached a large Square, a great centre of 
life and bustle, from which thirteen busy streets 
radiated. Through the trees in the centre of 
this great open space the statue of a king was 
seen, and red omnibuses crept slowly along on 
each side of the tram line. Here they saw the 
Royal Theatre, the famous Tivoli Gardens, 
and the beautiful old Palace of Charlottenburg, 


36 Our Little Danish Cousin 

close to an inlet of the sea, which reached right 
into the Square with all its shipping, so that 
masts and sails and shops and buildings took 
on the same friendly aspect that they have in 
Holland. 

“ But I don’t see any ‘ skyscrapers,’ Uncle 
Thor, like we have in Chicago, sometimes 
twenty stories high! Where are they?” in- 
quired the little American. 

“ In a moment or so, Karl, I will show you 
two ‘ skyscrapers ’ that will amuse you I ” said 
Hr. Svensen. “ But, look 1 here is a lively 
scene for us first.” 

They were passing the Copenhagen fish- 
market, or Gammelstrand, as it is called, where 
the fish are sold alive, after having been kept 
in large perforated boxes in the canal. 

“ Now look, Karl ; how’s that for a sky- 
scraper? ” 

They were looking at the tall tower of the 
BorSj or Exchange, one hundred and fifty feet 


Copenhagen 37 

high, with its upper part formed by four great 
dragons whose tails were so intertwined and 
twisted together, high up in the air, that they 
gradually tapered to a point, like a spire against 
the sky. 

Then there was another tower which inter- 
ested Karl. It was on the Church of Our Re- 
deemer. Circled by a long spiral stairway of 
three hundred and ninety-seven steps of gleam- 
ing brass, which wound round and round and 
up and up to the very top of the sharp cone, 
this tower gave the persevering climber a good 
panoramic view over Copenhagen. 

“ But not so good a view as we can get from 
the top of the Round Tower,” said Hr. Sven- 
sen. “ Here we are now.” 

They were glad to quit the jostling crowds 
on the streets, — throngs of busy shoppers, 
students in cap and gown, sightseers, and, to- 
day, bright-coated soldiers at every turn. The 
soldiers were arriving in Copenhagen by hun- 


38 Our Little Danish Cousin 

dreds every day now, they were told, in order 
to be ready, Monday morning, to welcome King 
Haakon of Norway, who was expected to ar- 
rive by ship. 

“ Oh, Uncle Thor, will you or Uncle Oscar 
not bring us down to the city, Monday, and 
let us see King Haakon drive past?” cried out 
both boys at once. 

“Yes, boys,” said Mr. Hoffman, “ I will be 
glad to bring you. I leave for Jutland in the 
afternoon, Monday, and that will give me my 
last chance to see a little more of Copenhagen.” 

At last they were in the Round Tower, and 
felt themselves slowly ascending. Up and up, 
and round and round and round on an inclined 
plane, they went — past curious niches in the 
wall, containing ancient monuments covered 
with Runic inscriptions; past a door leading 
to the university library, with its valuable col- 
lection of rare Icelandic manuscripts; slowly, 
on and on, until finally they reached the very 


Copenhagen 39 

top with its observatory, once the home of the 
great astronomer, Tycho Brahe. 

“ Peter the Great once drove a coach and 
four to the top of this very same tower,” vol- 
unteered Karl. “ I’ve read all about that at 
school in Chicago. What a splendid view of 
the city we are having. It is all spires, and 
red roofs and gables built stairway fashion, 
isn’t it?” 

“ And how beautiful and sparkling the 
waters of the harbor look, all alive with ships, 
great and small,” said Valdemar. ‘‘ It cer- 
tainly is a splendid seaport ! ” 

Far away, the Baltic, blue as the Bay of 
Naples, shimmered in the bright sunlight; and 
close at hand, at the various wharves, merchant- 
men, with valuable cargoes from far countries, 
were loading and unloading. It was a scene of 
busy life. The boys counted the flags of many 
different nations. No wonder the city had been 
named Merchant’s Haven, or Kjdhenhavn, 


40 Our Little Danish Cousin 

“ What a good view of the coast of Sweden 
we get up here,” said Valdemar. “ And north 
of us lies Elsinore, the scene of Hamlet’s trag- 
edy. And, Karl, I’m sure that, on a clearer 
day, we could see Rugen, the German island, 
where, one day long ago, the Kaiser sat on the 
top of the cliff four hundred feet high, and 
watched the famous sea-fight between the 
Swedes and the Danes. But I don’t like to talk 
about Germany. I’m glad that Aage is a sol- 
dier. Some day he will help us get Schleswig 
back again!” said patriotic little Valdemar. 
“ And, only think, some of the geography 
books have even dared to call the North Sea 
the German Ocean! Kiel Harbor, now bris- 
tling with German war-ships, once belonged to 
Denmark, and so did the whole Baltic! ” 

“ Yes, and once the Danes were ruling half 
of England, Ireland, and Scotland, and they 
even gained a foothold in Normandy,” said 
little Cousin Karl, by way of consolation. 


Copenhagen 41 

“ And the Germans once stood in terror of 
our great Vikings, who lorded it over the seas 
in every direction ! ” added Valdemar, with 
growing enthusiasm. “ Their graves may be 
seen on both sides of the North Sea to-day. 
And wasn’t it here, Uncle Thor, when an un- 
usually severe winter had bridged the Baltic, 
that the Swedish king, Karl Gustav, led his 
army, horse, foot and guns, over the frozen 
seas where no one had dared to cross before, 
and finally took Copenhagen? But Denmark 
and Sweden are at peace now.” 

I’m glad that they are,” replied Karl, 
“ and that Norway and Denmark are, too, or 
we might not see King Haakon next Mon- 
day!” 

“ Come I ” said Uncle Thor. “ Let us hurry 
home now, before we are late to dinner. It is 
a wonderful old tower, having survived both 
fires and bombardments. Once Copenhagen 
was fortified with a wall and a moat, for Den- 


42 Our Little Danish Cousin 

mark’s capital has passed through many vicissi- 
tudes, but in these peaceful days they both have 
been turned into parks for the people.” 

Dinner had been awaiting the hungry sight- 
seers for some time when they reached home. 

When they had all gathered about the dinner 
table, it was plain that there was some great 
secret in the air. Fru Ingemann’s face wore 
a bright smile, in spite of the late dinner, and 
little Karen held herself with an air of supreme 
importance, her cheeks bright, and her blue 
eyes dancing with suppressed excitement. 

“ Great news. Brother Thorvald ! ” began 
Fru Ingemann, handing him a great white en- 
velope bearing the arms of His Majesty, King 
Frederik. “ When Karen and I were quietly 
studying the recipe book, and thinking of the 
dinner far more than of kings, the bell rang 
sharply, and, lo and behold! there stood the 
King’s royal Jaeger ^ — in green uniform, 
* Hunter, or Messenger. 


Copenhagen 43 

three-cornered hat and all — Inquiring for you, 
brother I 

“ ‘ His Majesty, the King, sends this mes- 
sage to Hr. Professor Svensen,* he said with 
a gracious bow, and, again bowing low, de- 
parted. Karen and I, as you can well imagine, 
have been guessing everything possible and Im- 
possible ever since, and given up In despair, 
waiting for you to explain it all to us yourself, 
Thorvald.’’ 

By this time, Valdemar’s and Karen’s eyes 
were bulging wild with curiosity, and even Mr. 
Hoffman’s face showed extreme Interest. What 
could It be ? 

“ I am summoned to the Royal Palace Tues- 
day at eleven o’clock,” explained Hr. Svensen, 
“ to begin Immediate work upon a statue of 
His Royal Highness, the Crown Prince Olaf 
of Norway, who has graciously consented to 
give me a few sittings during his short visit 
in Denmark.” 


44 Our Little Danish Cousin 

When Uncle Thor had finished reading, he 
passed the great white envelope, headed “ Royal 
Palace,” with its interesting contents, over to 
his sister and the children. Never before had 
the King’s Jaeger come to Fru Ingemann’s lit- 
tle apartment out on Frederiksberg-Alle ! 

Valdemar was the first to speak. 

“ Oh, Uncle Thor ! I wonder if dear little 
Prince Olaf will pose with his beautiful big 
dog! He is never without him, you know. 
And oh, dear! Uncle Thor, can’t you take me 
along with you to mix your clay — keep it 
damp for you, and just do lots of things you’d 
like done? I want to go with you so much, 
Uncle Thor, to watch you work! I know I 
could help you ever so much, if only you would 
just take me ! ” urged the little embryo sculp- 
tor of the now great one. 

“ My dear little Valdemar,” said Uncle 
Thor with much tenderness in his voice, “ you 
are very v/elcome to go with me to the Royal 


Copenhagen 45 

Palace ‘ to watch me work.’ But, first, I want 
to watch you work. Watching me will not do 
you much good, my little artist, until you have 
done more work, yourself ! This summons may 
delay my leaving for my summer studio, up at 
Skagen, until the end of the week, and I am 
willing to give half of every day, until I go, 
to teaching you. Now try to have some work 
ready to show me by to-morrow. I will bring 
you more modelling clay when you have used 
up what you have here. In fact, I will bring 
you some of my own tools, and some casts for 
you to use as studies. Perhaps I can fit up a 
real little studio right here in your own home 
for you. I want to see what talent you have, 
y aldemar.” 

“ Oh, brother, how very good of you! ” ex- 
claimed Fru Ingemann. “ Valdemar must work 
very hard. He has talent, I feel sure.” 

They had all finished their soup, a kind of 
very sweet gruel with vegetables, and a dish 


46 Our Little Danish Cousin 

of ham was then placed before Fru Ingemann, 
who carved It, and passed around the slices, 
beginning with her nearest guest. Fish, pre- 
serves, and stewed fruits were served with it. 
Then followed Rod-grod, a kind of jelly to 
which the juice of different fruits had been 
added, tea and coffee, and the little dinner 
ended with the same ceremony as breakfast. 
Karl tried to suppress a smile as Valdemar and 
little Karen courtesied to their mother and 
uncles, as they said politely : “ Thank you for 
the food,” and went around and kissed them. 

“ My son,” said Karl’s father, reprovingly, 
** I like these beautiful old Danish customs. I 
only wish you and all our little American boys 
and girls had more of this feeling of gratitude.” 

“ Come, Karl,” called Valdemar, “ and see 
my beautiful Della Robbia ‘ Singing Boys,’ that 
Uncle Thor brought to me all the way from 
Italy!” 

As the boys disappeared, the two men with- 


Copenhagen 47 

drew to the smoking-room for a chat over their 
cigars, while Fru Ingemann busied herself as- 
sembling all the “ birthday flowers ’’ into the 
front window overlooking the avenue, accord- 
ing to an old-time custom in Copenhagen. 
Then she tucked little Karen snugly in bed with 
a great pillow propped up against her feet to 
keep the drafts off, for the early June day had 
grown suddenly cooler towards night. 



CHAPTER III 


“hurrah for king frederikI” 

“ Valdemar, tell me ! What is a real king 
like?” exclaimed Karl, as both boys sprang 
quickly out of bed bright and early Monday 
morning. “ Is a real king something like a 
President, only he’s all gorgeous with flashing 
decorations, and a sword and helmet, — like 
the pictures of Napoleon and the German Em- 
peror? ” 

“ Karl, you must have been dreaming about 
kings ! I can’t tell you whether a king is like 
a President or not, for I’ve never seen a Pres- 
ident,” said Valdemar. “ But I am sure of 
one thing, and that is that our King isn’t one 
bit like the German Emperor! King Frederik 
just looks like the very best king Denmark 

ever had, and that is what he really is 1 ” 

48 


“ King Frederik ! '' 49 

“ Oh, excuse me, Valdemar. I forgot that 
you don’t love the Germans. But does King 
Frederik come riding a great prancing charger 
with an arched neck and — ” 

“ You’ll soon enough see for yourself how 
the King looks, Karl. Oh, there’s Uncle Thor! 
Uncle Thor, how long before we can start?” 
cried Valdemar, who was himself almost as 
excited over the prospect of seeing two great 
kings at once, as was Karl. Valdemar had 
never seen King Haakon of Norway, son of 
his own dear King, and, although Karl, who 
was nearly twelve years old, had seen two Pres- 
idents, and gone once with his father to the 
White House in Washington, he had never 
seen a real live king in all his short life. 

“Oh, father dear!” he cried, “when can 
we start? There! I think I heard a bugle! 
Oh, do let’s go ! ” 

“ We will start before very long, Karl, but 
not until you boys have had your tea and bread. 


50 Our Little Danish Cousin 

And, if I’m not mistaken, I heard Valdemar’s 
uncle say that he was to have a good lesson 
in drawing this morning. King Haakon’s ship 
does not arrive in Copenhagen harbor before 
almost noon, so there will be plenty of time.” 

“Yes, I do want my lesson!” said Valde- 
mar, as they finished their cups of hot tea. 
“ I’m ready. Uncle Thor,” he called out, as 
he saw his uncle passing. 

Valdemar was in a very happy frame of mind 
this fine June morning, for his uncle had praised 
his work of the day before. Valdemar had 
modelled a half life-sized figure of his Great 
Dane, Frederik, and, to his great surprise. 
Uncle Thor had not only said that it was good, 
but had told his mother that it undeniably 
showed evidence of real talent. Nothing could 
please Valdemar more. 

Saturday’s sightseeing had given them all a 
taste for more. Fortunately, Karl had brought 
his bicycle with him from Chicago, and so the 


'‘King Frederik!” 51 

two boys followed on their wheels, while Fru 
Ingemann took her brother, Mr. Hoffman, and 
little Karen all in a carriage, and drove the 
length of the beautiful Shore Road, called the 
Langelime, or Long Line, — Copenhagen’s 
fashionable drive, that stretches for miles along 
the sea. The place was gay with Sunday 
crowds, — walking, riding, wheeling, driving, 
— all out enjoying the warm June sunshine, as 
well as the bracing sea-breeze. 

When they reached the quaint old Citadel, 
they left the carriage and strolled about the 
earthworks, viewing the monument made from 
the guns of the wrecked Dannehrogy a ship fitly 
named after the Danish flag. Promenaders 
thronged the Shore Road at this point, gazing 
at the shipping of all nations which here cov- 
ered the Sound, and off into the dim distance, 
at the shores of Sweden. 

Karl thought that his Aunt Else must have 
hosts of little friends, for all the small boys 


52 Our Little Danish Cousin 

bowed, and the little girls courtesied so pret- 
tily, as she passed. But Fru Ingemann ex- 
plained to him that it was only a custom of all 
well-bred Danish children to bow and courtesy 
to their elders, and then she told him how, 
every spring at Paaske, or Easter, as we call 
it, this beautiful Shore Road is thronged all 
day long with gay crowds all decked out in 
their Paaske finery, as it is again later at Store 
Bededag, or Great Praying Day, on the fourth 
Friday after Easter. 

From here they drove out to the old Castle 
of Rosenborg, with its fine garden where little 
children were playing about the statued-form of 
their beloved story-teller, Hans Christian An- 
dersen; and then straight home again, passing, 
on their way, the royal residential quarter, 
Amalienborg, which forms a great open Square, 
adorned with the beautiful Marble Church, 
and. In the centre of the Square, with a statue 
of King Frederik V. 


King Frederik ! 


53 

“ Now we’re off! ” said Uncle Thor, as Val- 
demar finished a very good drawing lesson, for 
Karl and his father, and Karen and her mother 
were already waiting. 

At first the electric tram simply flew. But, 
as they approached the down-town section of 
the city, its way was often blocked by the dense 
crowds, who, like themselves, were coming to 
witness the arrival of Copenhagen’s honored 
royal guest. His Majesty, King Haakon of 
Norway. 

“ Norroway-over-the-Foam, as it was once 
called,” laughed Fru Ingemann, “ is a land of 
beauty which we must all visit some day. It 
is so many, many times the size of our little 
Denmark that it makes us feel, by comparison 
at least, a very small country indeed.” 

“ But Denmark occupies more space on the 
map than either Belgium or Holland,” said Val- 
demar. 

“And Denmark is nearly twice the size 


54 Our Little Danish Cousin 

of Massachusetts,” added Karl. “ But, oh I 
Just do look at the terrible crowds I — and 
right here is where we get off I Father says 
‘Come!’” 

All at once they were thrust into the vast 
crowd. All Copenhagen seemed suddenly to 
have poured by thousands forth into the streets, 
and the flags of Norway and Denmark floated 
everywhere side by side. 

“ If only we can make the opposite side of 
the street!” said Uncle Thor, nervously look- 
ing about him in every direction, “ we shall be 
safe, for right up there, on the second floor of 
that building, is my friend’s office, from the 
window of which we are to view the royal pro- 
cession. Ah ! we’re safe now ! ” 

No sooner had they taken their positions in 
the large open window, than they heard, in 
the distance, a cannon’s loud report. It was 
followed by a salute of guns and loud 
cheering. 


King Frederik ! 55 

“ There I ” said both boys at once. “ That 
means that King Haakon has landed, and is 
now on his way here ! ” 

The cheering sounded nearer and nearer, and 
the cannon continued to boom. 

“Forty guns!” said Valdemar, who had 
been counting. “ Forty guns is Denmark’s 
royal salute. Karen dear, can you see? ” 

“ Yes, thank you, brother,” said the child, 
whose feet were fairly dancing with so much 
excitement. “ But look I They are clearing 
the street 1 The people are being made to keep 
back on the sidewalks. Listen ! That is our 
glorious old National Hymn that the splen- 
did Royal Guards are now playing. The King 
must be near! Listen, Karl! Oh, isn’t it all 
thrilling! ” 

Nearer and nearer sounded the familiar 
strains. 

“ It is splendid, Karen,” conceded Karl, “ but 
I’d like the Star Spangled Banner just as well. 


56 Our Little Danish Cousin 

and, besides, I guess a king’s no bigger’n a 
President! Oh, look!” But it was only an 
advance guard of mounted police. 

“ I’m glad, mother, that our window has the 
largest flag in town flying from it,” said Val- 
demar. “ I just do hope the King will look 
up here and see it! Listen! Now the people 
are beginning to cheer right down here under 
our very window! And the men are doffing 
their hats ! ” 

“ Hurrah ! Hurrah ! Hurrah ! ” cheered the 
loyal thousands, as the scarlet-coated King’s 
Guard came in view. 

“ Oh ! ” gasped Karen, with a long-drawn 
breath of delight. “ Oh ! isn’t it glorious ! 
Hear the bugle ! And here come the mounted 
Hussars with their little red capes fastened on 
one shoulder, and swords flashing ! How splen- 
didly they ride ! ” 

“ Mother, I’m going to wave my own flag 
when the King’s carriage passes ! ” cried pa- 


‘‘ King Frederik ! ” 57 

triotic little Valdemar. “ If King Frederik 
will only look up ! Don’t you hope he will, 
Karl? Ohl there’s his carriage now I iYes, 
he sees my flag waving! He’s looking! 
I’m going to cheer! Hurrah for King 
Frederik! ” 

The King heard and raised his head. His 
eyes fell directly upon Valdemar’s bright face, 
as had been the case that long ago day, in the 
Children’s Hospital. King Frederik smiled, 
bowed, and gave the lad a military salute of 
recognition. King Haakon was seated beside 
King Frederik, but Valdemar did not see 
him. In the following carriage were the two 
queens. Queen Maud of Norway, and their 
own beloved Danish Queen Lowisa, with 
little Crown Prince Olaf, of Norway, seated 
between them; but Valdemar saw only King 
Frederik. 

“ Mother! He knew me! ” cried Valdemar, 
as the brilliant procession passed slowly out of 


58 Our Little Danish Cousin 

sight, and the music, whose strains came faintly 
back to them, had changed from Denmark’s 
“ Kong Christian ” to the Norwegian National 
Hymn in honor of King Haakon. 


CHAPTER IV 


UP THE SOUND TO HAMLET’s CASTLE 

Mother dear, how fine and cool the sea- 
breeze feels!” exclaimed Valdemar, as the lit- 
tle Sound steamer puffed along over the bright 
Baltic waves, past the big merchant-ships on 
the blue Sound, making many stops on its way 
up towards historic old Elsinore, the spot made 
famous by Shakespeare. 

Uncle Oscar had departed three days before, 
going directly to the Jutland Park, to begin 
preparations for the entertaining of the thou- 
sands of loyal Danish-American visitors, ex- 
pected to arrive in time for the Fourth cele- 
bration, and Fru Ingemann had given him her 
promise to meet him there, with the three chil- 
dren, for that great event. 

59 


6o Our Little Danish Cousin 


For it had not taken Fru Ingemann long to 
decide that Uncle Oscar’s plan for the summer 
was best. Summer days are long, but few, in 
Denmark, — the winters cold and stormy, — 
and Karen and Valdemar needed the trip as 
much as did Karl, she told herself. So the 
little party of four were already on their way 
north, to see for themselves all the wonders 
and beauties of Jutland, of which Karl’s father 
had been telling them. 

Once Fru Ingemann had decided, the days 
fairly flew. Valdemar wanted to start at once. 
But there was all the packing to be done — 
of things to be left, and things to be taken — 
and the flat to be closed for at least several 
months. 

Karen, who had never before been farther 
from home than their own little villa up on the 
Strandvej, was overjoyed and danced busily 
about, saving her mother steps in a thousand 
different ways; while Valdemar and Karl sur- 


Hamlet’s Castle 


6i 


prised Fru Ingemann by getting out ladders, 
buckets and brushes, and nicely whitewashing 
all the flat windows, which was really being 
very useful indeed. 

“ Aunt Else, why is our steamer so awfully 
crowded with people? Are the Sound boats 
always like this? ” asked Karl, who could hardly 
turn his chair around without knocking into 
some one. 

Yes, Karl, it’s like this every year at 
‘ Deer-Park-time.’ The huge crowds are as 
eager as ourselves to leave Copenhagen with 
the first warm day and flee to Skoven,^ for we 
Danes love our beautiful woods. With the 
first bursting of the beech-buds, everybody asks 
everybody else : ‘ Have you been in the woods 
yet ? ’ And then by thousands — young and 
old — they flock to our beloved beech-woods. 
Those who cannot find room on the boats take 
the first train, or carriage, or cycle, or car, or 


*The woods. 


62 Our Little Danish Cousin 


even foot it — any way at all in order to reach 
the Deer Park, for that is where most of them 
go. After we make a stop there, we shall have 
plenty of room on our boat, Karl. Look! We 
are passing Charlottenlund, the Crown Prince’s 
palace. You can see it up among those fine old 
trees.” 

“ Then, Aunt Else,” asked Karl, “ isn’t 
‘ Deer-Park-time ’ something like our Ameri- 
can ‘ Indian Summer,’ only that it comes 
in the spring? It’s your finest part of 
spring, and our best part of fall, when every 
one wants to live out of doors. Isn’t that 
it?” 

That’s just right, Karl,” laughed Fru Inge- 
mann. “ And a little Danish boy would feel 
almost as badly not to be taken to the beech- 
woods when ‘ Deer-Park-time ’ comes, as would 
a little English boy if he got no plum pudding 
on Christmas day, or a little Scotch boy with- 
out his currant bun on New Year’s Day, or a 


Hamlet s Castle 


63 

nice little American boy like you, Karl, if he 
couldn’t have any firecrackers for his Fourth of 
July celebration. But here we are stopping at 
the Deer Park now. Half the people are get- 
ting off.” 

Valdemar’s eyes looked far beyond the dis- 
embarking crowds landing at the pier. He saw 
only the dark pine trees in the distance, straight 
and tall, suggesting to his imaginative mind 
giant masts for Viking ships. Many a fine day 
had he spent tramping through those tree- 
shaded walks with his mother, while she told 
him wonderful stories about Denmark’s great 
heroes of old. 

“ In America, we like to go to the woods, 
too,” said Karl; “ but not just to walk and walk 
all day. We like to play ball, or climb the trees 
for nuts, or keep doing something all the time. 
Do you ever do anything but just walk, in your 
woods? ” 

Sometimes, on a warm summer’s evening 


64 Our Little Danish Cousin 

in the woods, we sing some beautiful old hymn, 
like Grundtwig’s: 

Danes have their home where the fair beeches 
grow, 

By shores where forget-me-nots cluster, 

And fairest to us, by cradle and grave, 

The blossoming field by the swift-flowing wave.’ 

There are no people in all the world, Karl, who 
have the same simple love for their trees, as 
do the Danes,” explained his Aunt Else. 

“There, Karl, we are starting again,” said 
Valdemar. • 

The beautiful Deer Park, with its masses and 
pyramids of green foliage, followed the Sound- 
Shore for five miles before the steamer had left 
it behind. The boat kept close to the shore, 
stopping frequently at the little, red-roofed set- 
tlements, inviting little villas and sea-bathing 
resorts, to let off more passengers, for every- 
body in Copenhagen who can, must lie on the 
Strandvej for at least a part of every summer, 
enjoying the out-of-doors amusements, the bath- 


Hamlet s Castle , 65 

ing, the woods, sea, sky and sunshine. Nes- 
tling among the trees of the Strandvej, for 
miles, were little white, yellow, and green vil- 
las, among them Fru Ingemann’s, — at the 
sight of which Karen, who always felt a little 
sick on the water, brightened, and exclaimed: 

“ There, Karl, is ours! You must come back 
and spend another summer with us up there. 
We do have the best times, don’t we, Valde- 
mar? ” 

The afternoon was singularly fine. Hun- 
dreds of ships were gliding silently past them 
in one continuous procession. 

“ Why,” exclaimed Karl, “ there must be the 
flags of every nation on the globe. I’ve counted 
the Russian, German, French, English, Swe- 
dish, Norwegian, Italian, Greek, Spanish and 
Portuguese flags, and, look ! — there is a 
steamer with our dear old United States flag! 
How narrow the sound is growing. Aunt Else. 
The mountains of Sweden look nearer and 


66 Our Little Danish Cousin 


nearer. I believe that, if I yelled loud enough, 
the people over there could easily hear me.” 

** Yes, Karl, we must be nearing Helsiiigor, 
for the Sound certainly is narrowing rapidly. 
It is less than two miles wide at that point. It 
hardly seems three hours since we left Copen- 
hagen,” remarked Fru Ingemann. 

“ Oh, mother, look ! Isn’t that old Kronborg 
now?” exclaimed Valdemar. “That is surely 
Hamlet’s Castle, mother! Helsingor is where 
we land I ” 

“tYes, it is grim old Kronborg Castle, Val- 
demar. Many a tale its old gray walls could 
tell of terrible fighting, royal merrymaking, 
and of sadness. Karen and you, boys, shall go 
all through it when we land. For three hun- 
dred years Kronborg was the key to the Sound, 
keeping a sentry-like guard over the gate be- 
tween the Baltic and the North Sea. For be- 
fore the Kiel Canal was cut, as many as twenty 
thousand ships every year passed through thi§ 


Hamlet’s Castle 67 

narrow strait, bound for Russian and Swedish 
ports ; and Denmark grew rich from the Sound 
dues she collected. Now, the gates are open 
to the ships of all countries, and, when foreign 
sovereigns or men-of-war glide through this 
narrow silvery streak dividing Sweden and Den- 
mark, old Kronborg’s cannon give a friendly 
salute. But, come, we are landing now.” 

It was but a few minutes’ walk up to the 
frowning old fortress on the promontory, with 
its many lofty, gray stone towers rising from 
the castellated roof. Karl was seeing for the 
first time In all his life a real “ fairy-tale ” cas- 
tle, surrounded by a broad moat and ram- 
parts. 

First they were shown the apartments occu- 
pied by the royal family when, at rare times, 
they visit Kronborg. Passing a little chapel, 
with Its carved choir-stalls and pulpit, they 
found themselves, after a fatiguing ascent, out 
upon the flat roof of a great square tower, from 


68 Our Little Danish Cousin 


which they gazed in admiration in all direc- 
tions, for the day was remarkably clear and 
bright. 

Far and near, over land and sea, the view 
was magnificent. To the east rose the moun- 
tainous Swedish coast, and, to the north, the 
gleaming blue waters of the Sound expanded 
into the equally blue Kattegat. All was still, 
like noon. Nothing seemed to move but the 
multitude of white sails silently passing and 
repassing through the narrow silvery strait 
below. 

“ Mother dear, do you think I shall ever be 
able to paint anything so beautiful as this? 
Uncle Thor could do it justice, mother; but 
I — ” 

“ Yes, dear. If you work hard enough,” was 
his mother’s only answer, as she drew his coat 
collar closer about his neck, for a chill wind had 
risen. 

“ The Swedish coast is so near, mother, that 


Hamlet’s Castle 69 

I can see the windows of the houses,” said 
Karen. “ The coast doesn’t look dangerous, 
does it, mother; but Valdemar says the guard 
told him he had seen as many as six shipwrecks 
here in one night.” 

“ Yes, child, there are often bad storms on 
this coast; for the Kattegat is very rough and 
dangerous at times. Now we must go.” 

“ But, Aunt Else, I want to see the famous 
platform where the ghost of Hamlet’s father 
walked that night,” protested Karl, as the little 
party started down. 

“ Why, my dear boy, the ghost of Hamlet’s 
father is believed to have paraded this very 
platform, right here where we are standing,” 
laughed his aunt, as she put her arm about 
little Karen, who shuddered at the thought. 

“ Don’t you know the familiar verse, Karl? 

“ ‘ And I knew that where I was standing, 

In old days long gone by, 

Hamlet had heard at midnight 
The ominous spectre cry.* 


70 Our Little Danish Cousin 

“ This is, indeed, the far-famed castle of 
Elsinore, of glorious Shakespeare’s fancy, Karl. 
You must, of course, have read about it in your 
school in Chicago,” said Fru Ingemann, with 
a twinkle in her eye. “ Through the magic 
of Shakespeare’s great genius this out-of-the- 
way corner of our beloved little Denmark has 
become forever famous the whole world over. 
But come quickly, all of you; we have much 
yet to see this afternoon, before we take our 
steamer for Aarhus.” 

“ Wasn’t it here in this fortress, too, that 
beautiful Queen Caroline Matilda was impris- 
oned until her brother, George III, sent her to 
Germany, where she soon died?” asked Val- 
demar, as they hurried down. 

“ And, oh. Aunt Else, isn’t it right here in 
this castle that Holger Danske stays?” de- 
manded Karl. 

“ Yes, Valdemar, Queen Caroline Matilda 
was a prisoner here ; and Karl, no one can ever 


Hamlet’s Castle 


71 

see Holger Danske, although it is believed that 
he is alive somewhere down in the underground 
vaults of this fortress, and that, whenever Den- 
mark needs him, he will arise and come to her 
aid. All little Danish boys know him. Valde- 
mar, you tell Karl the story,” said Fru Inge- 
mann, as the little party hurried on. 

“ Well, Karl, Holger Danske is the great 
national hero of Danish tradition, the founder 
of the Danish nation, in fact,” began Valdemar, 
who was thoroughly familiar with his country’s 
history and traditions. “ Holger Danske’s cra- 
dle was a warrior’s shield, so the story goes, 
and he sits down in the deep dark dungeon of 
this fortress, all alone, clad in iron and steel, 
his head forever resting on his strong arms, 
bending over a marble table to which his great 
long beard has grown fast. There he forever 
slumbers and dreams that he sees and knows 
everything that is happening above in his be- 
loved Denmark. Whenever his country is in 


72 Our Little Danish Cousin 

peril, or stands in need of his services, he will 
appear. But, every Christmas night, one of 
God’s angels visits him in his dungeon, and 
assures him that all his dreams are true, and 
that Denmark is threatened with no extraor- 
dinary danger, and that he may sleep on again.” 

As they reached the Castle grounds, the guide 
pointed out the old moat, where Ophelia 
drowned herself, and the spring near by that 
bears her name. Then he took them to the 
grave of the melancholy Dane, in a beautiful 
shaded spot, marked by a moss-grown cairn of 
stones, and a granite shaft bearing the inscrip- 
tion: 


HAMLET’S GRAY.” 


CHAPTER V 


“fairy-tale” castles and palaces 

‘ Fredensborg ’ means ‘ Castle of Peace.’ 
It Is an idyllic spot near here, famous the whole 
world over as the happy holiday gathering- 
place, every summer, of half the present 
crowned heads, majesties, and royal high- 
nesses of Europe,” said Fru Ingemann. “ Let 
us take this waiting carriage now for a quick 
drive over there and back again In time for 
our steamer this afternoon to Aarhus. All this 
part of Eastern Zealand Is so rich In ro- 
mantic, fairy-tale castles and palaces, that I 
only wish we had time enough to see them all. 
But Fredensborg’s hospitable roof has sheltered 
all the royal children, grandchildren, and great- 
grandchildren of good old King Christian IX, 
73 


74 Our Little Danish Cousin 

of Denmark, who was affectionately called 
‘ The Grandfather of Europe.* Only think of 
a family reunion including King Frederik VIII 
and Queen Lowisa, of Denmark; their son, 
King Haakon, of Norway; former Queen 
Alexandra, of England, and her sister, the 
Dowager Empress Dagmar, of Russia, who 
were both Danish princesses ; King George and 
Queen Mary, of England; King George, of 
Greece ; and the Czar of all the Russias, — all 
meeting, every summer, in a quiet little family 
reunion in our obscure little Denmark at Fre- 
densborg Palace ! ” 

“ But, Aunt Else, you left out the German 
Emperor!’* observed Karl, who persisted in 
always mentioning the Germans. 

“ The German Emperor never comes to these 
royal gatherings, Karl. He is the only king 
who is not welcomed on Danish soil,** explained 
Fru Ingemann, gently. “ But here we are now 
at the palace.** 


Castles and Palaces 75 

They approached the palace through an ave- 
nue of magnificent old lindens, through whose 
interlaced branches they caught glimpses of the 
blue sky and of the still bluer Lake Esrom, near 
by. Then, entering a very stony courtyard, 
the carriage stopped before a few steps, guarded 
by two stone lions. 

Soon they were walking through the apart- 
ments of the Queen, on the right, and of those 
of the King, on the left. From the King’s plain 
working room, on the floor above, they looked 
out over the beautiful Marble Garden, so called 
from the elaborate statuary romantically placed 
among the old beech-trees, under whose deep 
shadows King Edward and Queen Alexandra, 
of England, did their courting. Nor was theirs 
the only royal love tale those mighty old trees 
could tell. 

In one room still stood the historic old Settee 
of the Czar, so called because the present Czar’s 
father, who loved children, used to sit there 


76 Our Little Danish Cousin 

and play for hours with his own royal children, 
whom he loved so well. 

Nothing interested them all more than the 
inscriptions — tender and pathetic — which 
they found on several of the historic old win- 
dows. Karl could only read a few, which hap- 
pened to be in English, such as “ Alexandra, 
September, 1868,” and another, “Willie,” 
which the King of Greece had written. But, 
when it came to a French inscription: Que 
Dieu veille sur la Famille Royale et la protege, 
Alexandra, 1867,” Karl had to call upon Val- 
demar to translate it for him, as well, of course, 
as all the Danish ones. 

“ ‘ May God watch over the royal family 
and protect it,’ is the translation of the French 
one, Karl, by Queen Alexandra; and Olga, 
Queen of Greece, has written in Danish here 
on this window: * Danmark, Danmark, elskede 
Hjem,* which means : ‘ Denmark, Denmark, 
beloved home,’ and here is a touching one by 


Castles and Palaces 77 

the late Czar: ‘ Farv el kjaere gamle Fredens- 
borg/ ‘ Farewell, dear old Fredensborg.’ ” 

“ And, mother,” said Karen, “ here is : 

‘ Farewell, my beloved Fredensborg. Alex- 
andra, September, 1868;’ and ‘ Christian-Lou- 
ise, 1864,’ and ‘ Valdemar-Marie, 1885.’” 

They drove away through the royal grounds, 
which reached down to the shores of beautiful 
Esrom Lake, glimmering like a sapphire in the 
setting sun’s soft light, and were soon back once 
more at Helsingor. 

‘‘ Aunt Else,” said Karl, “ Fredensborg Cas- 
tle looked exactly like the pictures of castles in 
the books of fairy tales.” 

“ If that is what you like, Karl, then some 
day you must surely see Frederiksborg Palace, 
in the lovely forest region north of Copen- 
hagen. It stands on an island m a lake, and 
is all spires, turrets and battlements, and cer- 
tainly looks like a real fairy-tale castle,” said 
Fru Ingemann. “ Some of its venerable beeches 


78 Our Little Danish Cousin 

are five hundred years old. But here is the 
little inn where we must have something nice 
and warm to eat before we take our steamer, 
in just a few minutes, for we will be sailing all 
night. We have barely time, if we hurry.” 

After finishing their little dinner of hot cin- 
namon-flavored soup, broiled fish, rye bread, 
preserves and rod-grod, all of which tasted so 
good after their drive back through the woods, 
they boarded the little steamer which was to 
take them on their all-night trip over the Katte- 
gat to Aarhus, on the east coast of the penin- 
sula of Jutland, or the Continent, as the Danes 
call it. 

“ Aunt Else, on one of those windows at 
Fredensborg, was the inscription: ‘ Valdemar- 
Marie, 1885.’ Won’t you tell me all about the 
Valdemars? They were Denmark’s greatest 
kings, weren’t they?” urged Karl. 

“ Yes, but Valdemar will be glad to tell you 
all about them and about all the other kings 


Castles and Palaces 79 

of Denmark, too, Karl ; but wait — here comes 
Froken Johanne Nielsen, with her little neph- 
ews, Tykke and Hans, to talk to us. Froken 
Nielsen is a great traveller. Children, don’t 
you remember meeting them one summer up 
on the Strandvej ? ” 

Karen courtesied prettily, while the boys 
arose, bowed, and politely gave their seats to 
the Nielsens. Then Fru Ingemann listened 
while Froken Johanne, who only remained a 
few minutes, told them of the famous sights 
of Stevns Klint, or cliff, on Zealand’s eastern 
coast, where they had just been; and of the 
still more wonderful scenery on the romantic 
little island of Moen, in the Baltic, where the 
dazzling white limestone cliffs of Lille and the 
Store Klint adorn the sea-coast, and where the 
summer-time sunset comes after nine o’clock, 
and the clear northern light lasts until morning. 

And don’t forget about Faxo, Aunt Jo- 
hanne, or Svendborg. Faxo was the best of 


8o Our Little Danish Cousin 


all,” put in little Tykke, as he delved deep 
down into his pockets and brought forth some 
pieces of fine coral. 

“ Yes, Faxd is an ancient coral crag jutting 
out into the Baltic,” explained Froken Johanne. 
“ It is full of beautiful and rare fossils, and 
from Svendborg, on Fyen Island, we had such 
a beautiful view for miles and miles. From 
one high place the children could see alternate 
land and water five times, as well as the coasts 
of Sweden and Germany. The islands seemed 
like stepping-stones in the Baltic. But come, 
children, say good-bye; we must go.” 

While they had been talking the setting sun 
had thrown a yellow glory over the waters in 
front of Elsinore, which was now fading slowly 
away. The forests about the old castle on the 
promontory became dark, blurred masses, and 
the white sails below were mere moving shad- 
ows. The children could no longer see even 
the many fine specimens of fossils and coral 


Castles and Palaces 8i 

which Hans and Tykke had generously divided 
with them. 

The little steamer advanced upon the rolling 
Kattegat, with great flocks of white-winged sea- 
gulls following in its wake. Fru Ingemann no- 
ticed that Karen, who never could stand the 
churning motion of a boat, was turning percep- 
tibly pale, and that a vague, uncertain feeling 
seemed to be creeping over even Valdemar and 
Karl, so she took her sleepy little brood below 
and soon had them all tucked snugly into bed 
for the night. 


CHAPTER VI 

THE LEGEND OF THE SACRED “ DANNEBROG ” 

“ It’s a letter from Uncle Oscar, mother I 
I just know it is I ” cried Valdemar, as Fru In- 
gemann opened and commenced reading aloud 
the only letter found awaiting them the next 
day, upon their arrival in the ancient town of 
Aarhus. 

“ And best of all,” concluded the letter, “ I 
have a great surprise in store for you all when 
you reach the Park next week. Karl will be 
especially delighted.” 

“Oh, Aunt Else, what can it be? How I 
wish I knew what father means ! ” exclaimed 
Karl, dancing about the room in anticipation of 
so soon seeing his father again. 

82 


The Sacred Dannebrog ” 83 

“ Let us make plans quickly,” said Fru Inge- 
mann. “ I am wondering how we shall ever 
crowd into one short week all the fine trips and 
excursions we shall want to take before we leave 
here, for Fru Petersen tells me that the sur- 
rounding country is far more interesting than 
Aarhus itself.” 

“ Yes, mother, the Riis Skov and the Mar- 
selisborg Skov, on the outskirts of Aarhus, are 
at their very best now for picnicking,” added 
Valdemar, who always loved the woods. “ A 
farmer passed us on our wheels this morning, 
and told us so.” 

“ And he said we should not fail to visit the 
beautiful chains of lakes and fir- forests around 
Silkeborg,” put in Karl. “ He told us that 
Silkeborg was once just a manor, the property 
of the bishops of Aarhus; and that it came to 
be built in such a funny way. He said that one 
of the bishops was so charmed with the scenery 
in that part of the country that he took a vow 


84 Our Little Danish Cousin 

that he would build a house wherever his silk 
cap, which a gust of wind had blown away, 
should remain. And so the strange name came 
about. Isn’t that a funny story, Karen? Can’t 
we go over to Silkeborg right now. Aunt 
Else?” 

“ Oh, not to-day, Karl, for it’s much too late. 
Besides, the sky looks threatening. I thought 
I heard something like low, distant thunder just 
a moment ago. But to-morrow we can take 
an all-day trip over to Mt. Himmelbjaerg and 
back, if we’re all up bright and early in the 
morning,” said Fru Ingemann. 

They were stopping with the Petersen fam- 
ily, in a little red-roofed, many-gabled house 
on a quiet side street in Aarhus. Karen and 
her mother had taken a short walk through the 
residential portion of the old town and back, 
and the two boys had been out on their wheels 
most of the day, eagerly exploring every nook 
and cranny of the healthy little trading city on 


The Sacred '' Dannebrog '' 85 

the Kattegat, which was a town of standing in 
the far-off days when Copenhagen was but a 
mere little fishing village. They had ridden 
past the Public Library, the artistic Custom- 
house, pretty little theatre, the interesting Art 
Gallery, with its fine collections by Danish 
artists, the grim old red-brick Gothic Cathedral, 
with its gables, narrow pointed windows and 
massive tower, and finally down to the busy 
harbor of Jutland’s thriving capital, where large 
vessels enter, for it is built out on the open 
shore. 

“ Aunt Else, the other day, I remember, you 
called Jutland ‘the peninsula;’ Fru Petersen 
always says ‘ the Continent; ’ and once I heard 
somebody speak of ‘us Islanders;’ so which is 
it? ” asked Karl. 

“ I’m not surprised that you are confused, 
Karl. I will try to explain it all to you,” said 
his aunt. “ Denmark is literally an Island 
Kingdom, for she has about two hundred 


86 Our Little Danish Cousin 

islands in all, situated at the entrance of the 
Baltic. Since the cutting of the Kiel Canal, 
even Jutland, which originally was, and still is 
in name, the Cimbrian Peninsula, has now be- 
come in reality an island, some of whose parts, 
being actually below the sea-level, are pro- 
tected by dykes and embankments. Even the 
Limfjord, which is no longer a fjord but a 
Sound, cuts Jutland in two again, adding one 
more to the list of Denmark’s many islands. 
Even Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, is built 
upon two islands, — the great island of Zea- 
land and the little island of Slotsholmen, over 
which it extends. 

“ Besides these, and many other smaller 
islands ^ of the Danish archipelago, Denmark 
has colonies, much larger than herself, which, 
strangely enough, are all islands. One is Ice- 
land, with its volcanic fires and geysers spout- 
ing through the ice; and the great snow-buried 
island of Greenland is another of Denmark’s 


The Sacred “ Dannebrog ” 87 

frigid possessions. There is also a group of 
islands in the West Indies.^ 

“ Yes, Aunt Else, thank you for telling me 
all about it. But I do wish I knew what father’s 
‘ great surprise ’ is to be ! ” sleepily murmured 
Karl, closing his eyes. “ Valdemar, you were 
going to tell us all about Denmark’s kings. 
Won’t you do it now? ” 

“ Yes, do, brother,” begged Karen, as she 
yawned and buried her flaxen head in a big, soft 
pillow. 

“Tell my best stories to such a sleepy audi- 
ence? I guess not!” said Valdemar, himself 
yawning. 

“ Such a sleepy lot of children I Off to bed, 
every one of you, and up early in the morn- 
ing,” said Fru Ingemann, kissing them good 
night. 

1 In 1902 the United States negotiated with Denmark for the 
purchase of St. Thomas, one of these islands, as a coaling station, 
or naval base ; but the Danish Rigsdag refused, by a single vote, 
to authorize the sale. It is believed that the matter will shortly 
be again considered by the two countries, 


88 Our Little Danish Cousin 


Hardly had they been in bed an hour, when 
a terrific thunder-storm broke over Aarhus. 
With the first deafening crash of thunder, the 
whole Petersen family sprang from their beds, 
dressed and rushed to the sitting-room, where 
they huddled around the great tile stove, their 
arms loaded down with their most treasured 
family possessions, Fru Petersen herself carry- 
ing the family plate and the cherished recipe 
book, which in Danish households is handed 
down from grandmother to mother and daugh- 
ter. 

The storm passed as quickly as it had come. 
By morning the ground was dry, the sky fair 
and blue, and Fru Ingemann and her charges 
well on their way to famous old Himmelbjaerg, 
which means Heaven’s Mountain, for it is the 
highest spot in all Denmark. 

“ Why didn’t we all jump out of our beds 
last night, too, mother,” questioned Karen, as 
their train was passing through much low, hilly 


The Sacred Dannebrog '' 89 

country, in the midst of beautiful woods and 
lakes. 

“ Oh, that was just noget snak,^ Karen. The 
Petersens were brought up in the country, and 
they were afraid of fire by lightning. But here 
we are, Karl, in the scattered little town of 
Silkeborg, where the bishop’s silk cap blew.” 

They first armed themselves with a large 
basket of provisions, then took a . trim little 
motor-boat, which carried them past woods and 
gardens and picturesque little stork-inhabited 
farmsteads, up a pleasant river which soon 
widened into a lake, and then from one blue 
lake into another, on and on, until they finally 
stopped at the foot of heather-covered old 
Himmelbjaerg, on whose summit they could 
see a tall, obelisk-like monument. 

“ It’s Denmark’s Pike’s Peak! Isn’t it. Aunt 
Else?” exclaimed Karl in delight. “Father 
and I have climbed Pike’s Peak in Colorado, 


Some nonsense. 


go Our Little Danish Cousin 

and, I can tell you, mountain climbing is just 
lots of fun! Can’t we go to the very top to- 
day, Aunt Else? ” 

With their long alpenstocks, Karen and the 
boys led the way up the gentle slope, while 
Fru Ingemann closely followed with the basket 
of good things to eat — smorrehrod, oranges, 
tarts, cake and sugar-plums, which disappeared 
as though by magic when they spread them on 
the grass in the shadow of the great brick 
tower. 

The view from the “ Kol,” or top, was in- ) 
describably beautiful, reaching as far as eye 
could see over far-stretching forests, and val- 
leys and com fields and chains of lakes, in every i 
direction to the unbroken horizon. | 

“Mother, mother! how wonderful!” ex- ; 
claimed Valdemar, after he had looked long I 
and silently at the impressive scene before him. \ 
“ It’s like one of Turner’s great paintings ! ” 1 

The grass on the mountain-side waved in the i 






They spread them on the grass in the 

SHADOW OF THE GREAT BRICK TOWER ” 




* • 





The Sacred “ Dannebrog 91 

strong summer wind. Beetles hummed, in- 
sects buzzed in the heather about them, and 
a little field-lark, perched on a near-by beech- 
tree, poured forth its song, while Karen chased 
the brilliant- v.inged butterflies as they dashed 
through the sunlight. 

“ ‘ Erected by Frederik VII,’ ” read Valde- 
mar aloud, deciphering the inscription on the 
base of the brick tower. 

Karen and Karl came running up, their arms 
full of mountain wild-flowers they had found 
almost hidden among the deep heather. 

“ Valdemar, are you going to tell us all 
about the Danish kings now?” urged Karl, 
who was a good student of United States his- 
tory, and loved hero-tales of any country. 
“ Please start at the very beginning. Karen 
wants to hear, too.” 

‘‘ And, after the story Is finished, perhaps 
we shall have time for a little row on the lake,” 
added Fru Ingemann. 


92 Our Little Danish Cousin 

Quickly they ranged themselves comfortably 
on the grass in the shade of one of Himmel- 
bjaerg’s giant old beeches, whose long arms 
swept the ground about them. 

“ Denmark means ‘ land of dark woods,’ ” 
began Valdemar, who loved his beautiful coun- 
try, and was familiar with her legends and 
history from his babyhood up. “ The North- 
men were a fire-worshipping heathen people, 
according to Snorre Sturlason, who says that 
Odin, their chief god, was a real personage, 
who used to appear to men. But all this early 
history of Denmark is so full of legend, petty 
fights of kings, piratical exploits, and strange, 
wild stories and romances of the Skalds, that 
It is very hard to tell which is fact or fable, 
until we come to the last thousand years of 
Danish history. 

“ But in those early mythological days, when 
Denmark was covered with dark forests of 
mighty firs, Dan the Famous was one of the 


The Sacred “ Dannebrog 93 

earliest kings, reigning in 1038 B. c. He be- 
came powerful, after uniting many small chief- 
tains to himself, and so, according to some 
authorities, the country was called ‘ Dan- 
mark,’ or the border of the ‘ Dans,’ or 
Danes. 

“ Gorm the Old, in the middle of the ninth 
century, was really the first king to rule over 
the whole of Denmark, and his was called the 
Golden Age. His beautiful young wife. Queen 
Thyra Dannebod (the Dane’s Joy), was full 
of goodness and wisdom, and after Gorm’s 
death, she built the famous Dannewirke, a 
great wall that stretched across Denmark from 
the North Sea to the Baltic, for her people’s 
protection against the fearful inroads and plun- 
derings of their southern neighbors. One may 
see the graves near Jellinge, to-day, of Gorm 
the Old and Queen Thyra, two heather-cov- 
ered, flat-topped cairns marked by massive old 
Runic stones. 


94 Our Little Danish Cousin 

“ Then Gorm’s son, King Harold Blaatand 
(Blue-tooth), ruled over Denmark, and was 
slain one night as he slept by a camp-fire, by 
the gold-tipped arrow of his heathen enemy, 
Planatoke. After him came his son, Svend 
Tveskaeg, who commenced the conquest of 
England, which was ended by Knud den Store, 
or Canute the Great, thus uniting the crowns 
of both kingdoms during his reign and that of 
his son, Harthaknud (Hardicanute) , who was 
followed by King Svend Estridsen. 

“ Sometime I must tell Karl some of the 
wonderful tales I’ve read about all these old 
kings — tales re-told from the ancient Sagas 
and Chronicles, with their warrior-songs, giant- 
songs, hero-tales and ballads. Danish litera- 
ture is full of them. 

“ But now we come to the three great Val- 
demars, and their glorious battles.” 

“ And all about our Dannehrog — the flag 
that fell from heaven, Valdemar,” broke in 


The Sacred “ Dannebrog 95 

Karen, who never could hear that story often 
enough. 

“ And tell us all about the king who was 
put into a bag, won’t you, Valdemar?” urged 
Karl. 

“Yes, I’m coming right now to both those 
stories, which happened in the reign of Val- 
demar II. But first I want to say that it was 
Valdemar I who cleared the Baltic and North 
Seas of all the terrible Wend pirates, and it 
was also during his reign that Denmark’s war- 
like bishop, Absalon, founded Copenhagen and 
gave the people a constitution. 

“ With Valdemar II a great and glorious 
era for Denmark set in. The old ballads and 
folk-songs tell how he courted Dagmar, the 
fair Bohemian princess, for his bride, and never 
was Danish queen more beloved by her people. 

“ Indeed, the Golden Age seemed to have 
returned to Denmark under the early reign of 
this successful young monarch, who was as 


96 Our Little Danish Cousin 

knightly and handsome as he was courageous. 
His empire grew until he finally became mas- 
ter of Holstein, Schwerin, and all the prov- 
inces of Northern Germany, and his people 
called him Valdemar Seir (the Victorious). 
When the Pope granted him sovereignty over 
all the peoples he could convert, he set out upon 
a crusade against the pagans of Esthonia, with 
more than a thousand ships, and many thou- 
sands of men. With the Pope’s blessing he 
sailed across the Baltic, but so vast did the host 
of the enemy appear, as his fleet neared the 
shore, that the Danes at first feared to land. 
But their archbishop reassured them, and they 
landed in safety. Towards evening, with King 
Valdemar at their head, the battle raged furi- 
ously. The struggle grew fiercer and fiercer, 
until the Danes, who were outnumbered, were 
beginning to give way, when there arose a 
great cry: ‘The Banner! The Banner!’ Pa- 
gan and Christian paused. All eyes turned 


The Sacred Dannebrog 97 

towards the sky, where, as though miracu- 
lously flung from heaven, was seen falling into 
the midst of the Christian ranks a blood-red 
banner bearing a great white cross, — our 
sacred Dannebrog. ‘ For God and the King,’ 
cried the crusading Christians, as they seized 
the Heaven-sent flag, and again charged their 
enemy, who now fled in terror. The victory 
was won, and the Dannebrog, from that hour, 
became the sacred national standard of Den- 
mark. 

“ Now Fm coming to the ‘ king In a bag ’ 
story, Karl,” said Valdemar. “ Denmark’s 
power was now supreme throughout Scandi- 
navia, Northern Germany and even over to 
Russia. Valdemar’s reign was at its height. 
His people adored him. But there were secret 
foes — the conquered princes of Germany — 
awaiting his downfall. Among them was one 
in particular called Black Henry, who hated 
Valdemar, and was biding his chance to over- 


98 Our Little Danish Cousin 

throw, if not to kill him. All in one single 
night the treacherous deed was done. Wearied 
by a day spent in hunting, the King and his 
son slept that night in a small, unguarded tent 
in the woods of the little island on Lyo. Sud- 
denly their slumber was broken into by an 
unseen foe. The King could scarcely move, 
or speak, or see, or breathe. Black Henry had 
fallen upon King Valdemar and his son, bound, 
gagged and tied them up into two bags, and 
fled with his royal captives to a waiting boat 
in the river, and hurried them to Germany, 
where they were thrown into prison. 

“ Some years after, the King was ransomed 
by his loyal people with gold and lands, and 
he finally returned to his beloved Denmark 
amid the greatest rejoicing, to find most of his 
splendor gone. He was no longer king of a 
great empire, but he had his people’s love, 
and spent his remaining years faithfully im- 
proving all the laws of his country.” 


The Sacred Dannebrog '' 99 

“ Oh, what glorious stories you do tell ! ” 
exclaimed Karl, who, with Karen, had been 
listening spell-bound to the end. “ I shall 
never again see the famous old Dannebrog^ 
without thinking of that wonderful story of 
how it fell from heaven, and saved the battle 
for the Danes.” 

“ If Valdemar never makes his mark in the 
world as a celebrated sculptor, he certainly will 
as a great historian, with that memory of his,” 
said his mother, indulgently. The afternoon 
sun was sinking in the west as they made their 
way down the mountainside, and soon left beau- 
tiful old Himmelbjaerg far behind. 


CHAPTER VII 

THE STORY OF THE DANISH “ AHLHEDE ” 

Soon they were tramping past wind-tossed 
rye-fields and through sweet-smelling meadows 
from which, every now and then, a long-legged 
stork flapped its wings and flew skyward at 
their approach. 

Their way to the boats of pretty Tul Lake, 

— gleaming through the trees in the sunlight, 

— lay along the banks of the Gudenna River, 
which has its source among the picturesque 
hills near Veile; then meanders northward 
through ranges of hills and green fields, wind- 
ing with many a bend and curve on past old 
Himmelbjaerg, past Silkeborg and Randers, 
finally emptying through Randers Fjord into 
the Kattegat. 

. 1CX5 


The Danish Ahlhede 


lOI 


“Are you looking for the row-boats?” came 
a sweet voice just behind them. “ They are 
just around the bend. I will show you the 
way.” 

Turning in the direction of the voice, Val- 
demar saw a pretty, rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed lit- 
tle peasant girl, in embroidered bodice and cap, 
carrying a great arm-load of poppies and for- 
get-me-nots, and, stiltily walking along the 
middle of the road back of her, was a great 
white, red-billed stork. 

“ There are the boats now,” she said, point- 
ing down a wooded bank just ahead of them, 
and turning to go. Fru Ingemann offered her 
a small coin with her thanks and a smile, but 
the proud child refused the coin with an indig- 
nant: *^Nej tak! Ingenting! Ingenting! ^ 
and started on her way, — the stork still fol- 
lowing in stately tread. 

“Is that your stork?” Karl couldn’t help 
No, thank you. Nothing ! nothing ! ” 


102 Our Little Danish Cousin 


calling after her, for he thought it aw- 
fully funny to see the big white stork 
following a little girl in such friendly 
fashion. 

“My stork? Why, no! I have no stork,” 
laughed the merry-faced little peasant maid. 
“ But there is a stork’s nest on the top of the 
white church tower over there, and another one 
up on farmer Andersen’s chimney, where he 
placed an old wagon wheel last year for them. 
And over yonder, in the eaves of the village 
houses, there must be several hundred storks. 
They are very tame, and often follow the 
plough in search of food for their nestlings, 
which they find in the newly-turned earth. This 
is their nesting time now. Then, when fall 
comes, they will fly with their little ones down 
to France and Egypt for the winter. But the 
same storks always come back. This same one 
followed me about last year. I think it knows 
me.” 


The Danish ''Ahlhede 


103 


In Karl’s land there were no friendly, red- 
legged storks stalking about the country roads, 
but he had read all about them in his “ Ander- 
sen’s Fairy Tales.” 

“ Storks bring happiness and good luck,” 
explained Valdemar, “ and to kill a stork in 
Denmark is a greater crime, if anything, than 
to kill a fox in England.” 

As the boat moved out into the blue lake, 
through the silent reeds and water-lilies along 
the shore, with its drowsy white swans, Karl 
could still see in the distance the little peasant 
girl with her wild-flowers, the stork in the mid- 
dle of the road still keeping stately pace with 
her. Then he burst out laughing at the funny 
sight. 

Valdemar and Karl were both good oars- 
men, and so they rowed far out across the lake, 
then drifted lazily along, while Fru Ingemann 
entertained them with one of Evald’s charming 
fairy-tales, parts of Ohlenschlager’s delightful 


104 Our Little Danish Cousin 

“ Aladdin,” and tales from old Danish Saga- 
lore. 

“Mother, won’t you sing something?” 
begged Valdemar, who always loved to hear 
his mother’s beautiful voice. 

“Yes, while you are both rowing back to 
shore, for it is growing late,” said Fru Inge- 
mann, as she began and sang for them one of 
Weyses’s old Saga-like romances. 

The cool evening breezes, whispering among 
the trees, told them that the long, happy day 
was over, and that they must catch their train 
back to Aarhus at once. 

Then came the day v/hen they went by boat 
down the coast and sailed up Veile Fjord, to 
spend two happy days at the Munkebjerg,^ 
with many a ramble through the woods, guided 
to and from all the loveliest views by following 
the red or the yellow arrows on the trees, 
pausing now and then, after a stiff climb, to 


^ Monk’s Mountain. 


The Danish “Ahlhede” 105 

rest a moment in front of some little wooden 
chalet, or to sit and enjoy the scene from Atil- 
la’s Bench or Baron Lovenskjold’s Bench, if 
they had followed the red route, or at Rye- 
holm’s Bench or The Bench of the Four-Leaved 
Clover, when they had followed the yellow 
marks. 

And from Munkebjerg they had gone to 
Jellinge, a town perched upon the breezy up- 
land, and there they saw the two large, flat- 
topped, heather-covered “ barrows,” or graves, 
of Gorm the Old and Queen Thyra, of which 
Valdemar had been telling them, and Karl was 
surprised to hear that there still remained In 
Zealand, alone, some thousands of these Viking 
cairns, or Warrior’s Hills, as they are 
called. 

Then, as the end of their short week drew 
near, the children begged Fru Ingemann to 
take them by motor-car to Randers, where the 
famous annual Horse-Fair was being held, and 


io6 Our Little Danish Cousin 


they strolled through the streets of the cheerful 
old town, with its quaint old houses with their 
slanting roofs and protruding windows. 

The Danish flag, with its sharp white cross 
on a blood-red field, fluttered everywhere. 
Hundreds of them decorated the exhibition 
field, to which the towns-folk and farmers, in 
their Sunday-best, swarmed, from far and near, 
to hear the speeches and witness the awarding 
of prizes to the superbly groomed, arch-necked 
horses of the famous Jutland breed. 

The children had hoped to see the peasants 
still wearing Hessian boots and velvet coats 
covered with great silver buttons, but Fru In- 
gemann told them it was fifty years too late 
for that. They bought tickets — little bits of 
blue and white ribbon with “ Randers ” and the 
date printed on them — to the cake-man’s 
boo-th, and there they bought all sorts of cakes 
fantastically made into queer-shaped men and 
horses and hearts, all covered with sugar and 


[The Danish '‘Ahlhede” 107 

almonds and candies, each with a little motto 
on it. 

Karen soon grew tired and sleepy, so they 
did not stay to witness the general fun and 
frolic and peasant dancing at night. As they 
left the grounds Karl, who was beginning to 
learn a few Danish words, exclaimed at an 
advertisement he saw on a signboard: Indus- 
triforeningshygningen! ^ “ Valdemar, is all that 
just one word? ” he asked. 

“ Just one word, Karl,” replied his cousin. 

“As we are all to leave Monday morning 
for the Park, and Randers is half-way there,” 
said Fru Ingemann, “ I have decided not to 
return to Aarhus at all, but to remain here over 
Sunday.” 

No one wanted to go anywhere on Sunday, 
so the day was quietly passed at home. In 
Monday morning’s mail came a letter from 
Uncle Thor, asking how soon Valdemar could 

1 Manufacturers and Sealers’ Associations Building. 


io8 Our Little Danish Cousin 


start up to Skagen, and also a telegram from 
Uncle Oscar, saying: “Meet me at noon, 
Monday, at Ribald. Pleasant surprise for 
Karl.” 

“ Oh, Aunt Else, what can father’s surprise 
be? I don’t see how I can ever wait to find 
out.” But his aunt only advised him to be 
more patient, for he would soon know. 

“ Tell me all about the Heath then. Aunt 
Else, and this Park, where we are going,” said 
Karl, as their train sped rapidly northward 
through the low moorland hills, past clover 
fields where herds of fat red Danish cattle 
stood separately tethered; past prosperous lit- 
tle farms, some of them with their waving 
rye-fields, others all aglow with yellowing 
grain. 

“ Long, long ago,” began Fru Ingemann, 
“ in the days when Grandmother Ingemann 
was only a little girl, before there was any tele- 
graphs or telephones, the very heart of all 


The Danish ‘'Ahlhede 


Jutland — as large a space as the whole island 
of Zealand — was just a dangerous, wild, bar-* 
ren desert, all sand and peat-bogs. The few 
Heath-dwellers who tried to live there led very 
lonely and dangerous lives. The Natmaend, a 
strange race of gypsy robbers, smugglers and 
kidnappers, wandered there. History records 
many dark tragedies enacted on the Heath. 
It was on Grathe Heath that young King Val- 
demar the Great met and overpowered his 
treacherous enemy, Svend; and, a century later, 
the Heath was the scene of a still grimmer 
tragedy, the murder of King Erik by Marsk 
Stig. 

“ The Ahlhede, or All-Heath, as the Danes 
called it, had not always been a desert-land, 
covered for miles with Viking barrows. There 
had once been beautiful forests of spruce and 
oak and fir-trees stretching over this four thou- 
sand miles of waste land. But what forests the 
long droughts and merciless west winds and 


I lo Our Little Danish Cousin 

cold blasts from the North Sea failed to des- 
troy the ancient Vikings and their subjects cut 
down for their ships, huts and for fuel, leav- 
ing only a great silent, desolate, desert land. 
It remained thus for such ages that no one ever 
believed that it could be reclaimed, — that is, 
no one until Captain Dalgas set to working 
out his dreams and theories for conquering it. 
His hope was to win back to Denmark, through 
the conquering of the Heath, the territory lost 
through the Schlesvig-Holstein war. He 
formed the Heath Society and replanted the 
treeless wastes. 

“ To-day, countless farmsteads, meadows 
and pastures of the Danish peasantry dot the 
Heath from Germany to the Skaw. Trees 
again flourish; all has been changed as if by 
magic, and the plough goes over more and 
more acres of it every year, until a group of 
patriotic Danes, like your Uncle Oscar, have 
taken alarm lest all the breezy stretches of 


The Danish ‘'Ahlhede 


III 


heather be reduced to farms, and none of the 
old-time Heath be preserved untouched for its 
own natural beauty’s sake.” 

“ Uncle persuaded a lot of Danes away off in 
Chicago, where he lives, to buy up a lot of the 
wildest and most beautiful part of it so that 
Denmark might keep it forever as a Park. 
Isn’t that it, mother?” questioned Valdemar. 

“ Yes, exactly, Valdemar,” replied his 
mother. “ And, because of the untiring efforts 
of a group of patriotic American Danes, like 
your Uncle Oscar, a beautiful wild spot of 
three hundred acres up in Northern Jutland, 
near Ribald, has been purchased, and will be 
formally presented to the Danish government 
as a reservation, with the one condition that, 
every year, in that spot, when Danish-Ameri- 
cans cross the ocean to meet there and cele- 
brate their Fourth of July on Danish soil, the 
Stars and Stripes shall float above Denmark’s 
sacred Dannehrog. Now that everything is 


1 12 Our Little Danish Cousin 

rea3y, the Park is to be formally presented to 
the Danish Government.” 

“Presented to-day, mother?” asked Karen 
in surprise. 

“ Yes, this very afternoon. There will be a 
great crowd. Every steamer for weeks past 
has been bringing over hundreds of Amer- 
icans, and, Karl, look out, for you may 
meet some of your Chicago friends among 
them.” 

“From home. Aunt Else? There’s nobody 
Pd rather see from home than my own 
mother ! ” said little Karl, rather wistfully. 
“ Gee ! I do wish I could see my mother ! I 
just wonder what daddy’s ‘ great surprise ’ can 
be! Oh, just look at the big crowd! ” 

The train had stopped. “Ribald!” sang 
out the conductor. In a twinkling the car was 
emptied. As Fru Ingemann and her charges 
reached the platform, Karl saw two waving 
handkerchiefs making their way through the 


The Danish “Ahlhede 


dense crowd towards him, and in an instant 
more he felt his mother’s arms around 
him. 

** Mother ! mother! I’m so glad you’ve 
come I ” he cried in joy. “ Daddy, you did 
give me a pleasant surprise ! ” He laughed 
as Fru Ingemann and her sister Amalia greeted 
each other. 

“ Aunt Amalia, won’t you stay over here in 
Denmark with us all summer?” urged Valde- 
mar, as the happy little party was being driven 
rapidly on their way to the Park. 

“Yes, Valdemar, — that is. I’m going to 
remain until your Uncle Oscar can get back 
from the United States again. That is why 
I have come — so as to stay with Karl, 
and let him see some more of Denmark, 
during his father’s absence. And then I’m 
glad to see this wonderful Park, too, of 
course.” 

“ Why, Daddy I Must you go back to Amer- 


1 14 Our Little Danish Cousin 

ica, and leave us?” protested Karl, who was 
having another surprise. 

“ I’m sorry, but business calls me back to 
Chicago at once, my little Karl. I leave this 
afternoon, immediately after the festivities, but 
I’ll come back again soon. Here we are at 
the Park now.” 

As Mr. Hoffman, as president of the Danish- 
American Park, took his place upon the speak- 
er’s platform, and began his address, welcom- 
ing the thousands of American visitors he saw 
before him, back to the Fatherland, — to the 
Park — their Park forever, — a great cheer 
arose, which was redoubled in volume as the 
Stars and Stripes were impressively hoisted 
over the beloved Dannehrog — and then from 
a thousand voices the Star Spangled Banner 
floated forth over the Danish hills. 

There were complimentary speeches by both 
the American and Danish ministers, and by 
Crown Prince Christian. Then every one sang 


The Danish “Ahlhede” 115 

one of those beautiful old national songs the 
Danes love so well to sing in their woods, and 
Karl told Valdemar and Karen the story of the 
“ Birth of Old Glory,” — as the United States 
flag is sometimes called. 

In the evening, the whole forest seemed one 
vast fairy-land, with its myriad sparkling lights, 
strains of soft music, gay crowds and waving 
flags. Multitudes of lamps, of all colors and 
sizes, swung from the trees, throwing a ro- 
mantic fairy-like light over the rustling beech- 
trees. Torches had been stuck wherever it had 
been possible to fasten them, and here and 
there a huge bon-fire flung its lurid glare 
over the whole scene, sending up great vol- 
umes of black smoke into the darkness over- 
head. 

Three very tired and sleepy children were 
those whom Fru Ingemann put to bed that 
night, even before their usual time. The hap- 
piness of the long day — so full of new sights, 


Ii6 Our Little Danish Cousin 

surprises and excitement for Valdemar as well 
as Karl — was only marred by the leave-taking 
of Uncle Oscar for his long trip back to his 
home in far-away Chicago. 


CHAPTER VIII 


SKAGEN 

To Valdemar it seemed like a week, rather 
than just three days, since he had bidden good- 
bye to his mother, Karen and Aunt Amalia, 
and brought Karl with him up to the little 
painter’s village of Skagen on the Kattegat, 
where they were to spend the months of July 
and August visiting Uncle Thor, who had built 
for himself one of the most charming of ?J1 the 
pretty, long, low, vine-covered homes of the 
famous Artist-Colony, of which he, as Court 
Painter, was by far the most distinguished 
member. 

Up here was Uncle Thor’s summer studio, 
with its row of fifteen great windows between 


ii8 Our Little Danish Cousin 


which glorious red hollyhocks towered almost 
up to the red roof-tiles. On the south, the 
windows overlooked a gay, flower-massed gar- 
den where, on warm summer afternoons, the 
great sculptor loved to chat with painter- 
friends, and serve tea under his wind-swept old 
elms. 

Here, in this bare and lofty studio, with its 
half-finished paintings and groups in clay, and, 
if the day be chilly, its crackling wood hearth- 
fire at the further end, throwing a flickering, 
rosy light over all, — here Valdemar was to 
spend many hard, long hours every day under 
his gifted godfather’s instruction. 

“ In the whole of Denmark was there ever 
any boy half so fortunate?” thought Valde- 
mar to himself, as he made a mental resolu- 
tion to show Uncle Thor his appreciation by 
the hardest work of his life. Valdemar could 
work hard, and he meant not only to prove to 
his uncle what earnest toil and definite purpose 


\ 



“In the centre of the studio stood the un- 
finished STATUE OF THE LITTLE 
Crown Prince ” 


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Skagen 119 

could do, but also to win his offer to send him 
to the Academy in the fall. 

On a low platform, in the centre of the 
studio, stood the unfinished statue of the little 
Crown Prince Olaf of Norway which Uncle 
Thor had commenced in Copenhagen at the 
Royal Palace. Day by day it was nearing com- 
pletion. 

“ And here,” said Valdemar’s great teacher, 
uncovering a smaller but similar clay figure of 
the same charming subject, “ is work my ambi- 
tious little pupil is to finish before he leaves 
Skagen. It will be hard work, Valdemar, and 
it will put your ability as a young sculptor to 
a fine test. But you can do it, Valdemar, and 
do it creditably, too ! ” 

“Oh, Uncle Thor! Do you really think 
so? I’ll try hard enough!” promised the lad 
as he set to work in good earnest. 

The long hours, which Valdemar spent daily 
in the studio, Karl passed either out of doors 


120 Our Little Danish Cousin 


or in reading all the fascinating books on 
Danish history in Uncle Thor’s library. 

There were frequent letters to both boys 
from Fano, the little island in the North Sea, 
where Karen, her mother, and Aunt Amalia 
were spending the summer. Later they were 
going to spend a few weeks on a large farm, 
for a change. 

And so the weeks passed. Finally Holme 
Week, with its clear, bright evenings, came; 
but the midsummer sun was growing un- 
comfortably warm even as far north as 
Skagen. 

Valdemar’s work on his little Prince Olaf 
statue was so far advanced that Uncle Thor 
readily consented when the two boys begged 
him to let them take the dog, Frederik, along 
with them, and tramp over the two miles of 
mountainous sand-ridges which led to Den- 
mark’s most northern point, Grenen, or the 
Gren, — a mere desolate sand-reef, the last lit- 


Skagen 121 

tie tip of Jutland’s mainland, which extends be- 
tween the waters of the North Sea and the 
Baltic. 

The only signs of life the boys passed on the 
way, as they trudged along together, often 
ankle-deep in the sand, were a few long-legged 
birds, and several huge hares which shot across 
the road in front of them. 

“ We didn’t bring along more than half the 
sand-hills with us, did we, Valdemar? ” laughed 
Karl, as they threw themselves down on the 
beach at Grenen, emptied the sand from their 
shoes, and donned their bathing suits. 

“ Talking about sand, Karl, some day I must 
show you all that remains of an old Gothic 
church tower near Skagen. One day, during a 
service, a great sand-storm came up and buried 
the church itself so suddenly that the only es- 
cape the people had was from the belfry. That 
is all that can be seen of that church even 
to-day.” 


122 Our Little Danish Cousin 


Frederik barked loudly and dashed back 
and forth after the two boys, who were soon 
bubbling over with the fun and excitement of 
dipping their feet first into the breakers of the 
Skager-Rak, and then into the waters of the 
Kattegat, the warm July salt wind and spray 
tanning their bare arms and faces. Then, 
Frederik following, Valdemar swam far out 
into the sea and back again, with the utmost 
ease. All Danish boys can swim well, and Val- 
demar wanted to give Karl a demonstration of 
his ability as an expert swimmer. 

“Kattegat! Skager-Rak!” shouted Karl, 
who liked something in the sound of the words. 
“ Grenen’s great! But, honest, Valdemar, 
never in my life did I expect to bathe in both 
these raging seas at once ! But here I go — 
look now ! ” and he plunged out into the break- 
ers. Frederik dashed after him to make sure 
that he was safe, then came bounding back 
again to Valdemar. 


Skagen 123 

“ Ow I ow ! ” cried Karl, limping back on 
one foot. 

“Crabber?” inquired Valdemar. “Uncle 
Thor warned us to look out for crabs and 
shrimps up here on the beach. You sit down 
here and rest, Karl. I’m going to gather 
some of those fine sea-gull’s feathers scat- 
tered along the beach for you to take back 
home with you for your collection of Danish 
souvenirs. It was mighty nice of Uncle 
Thor to give you that letter from King 
Frederik!” 

“ And I’m going to put my shoes and stock- 
ings right back on again while you’re gone I ” 
said Karl, surveying his painful foot with a 
frown. 

“Oh, look, Karl!” exclaimed Valdemar, as 
he soon came running back, his arms full of 
something. “ Look what I’ve found for you ! 
Sea-gulls’ eggs ! All greenish, with brown pep- 
pery spots on them, and here’s a lot of the love- 


124 Our Little Danish Cousin 

liest white wing-feathers, every one tipped with 
black I They’re all for you, Karl.” 

“ Oh, thank you, Valdemar. Let’s blow the 
eggs. Do you know how?” 

“ Yes, of course. I’ve got a piece of wire 
in my pocket. You just run this wire straight 
through both ends — sol Then blow and 
blow!” 

Together the boys had soon blown all the 
eggs, and tied them up with the feathers in 
a piece of old fish-net they found on the beach. 
Then Karl watched Valdemar while he made a 
hasty sketch of Skagen Fyr, the great white 
lighthouse towering above the sand-hummocks 
near the Signal Station, where it is said that 
every year seventy thousand ships are signalled. 

As they started on their two-mile tramp over 
the desolate sand-ridges back to Skagen, Valde- 
mar gave one last lingering look towards the 
wild, wind-swept stretch of endless beach they 
were leaving, where the North Sea and the 


Skagen 1 25 

Baltic have battled against each other for count- 
less ages, with one ceaseless roar. Back of 
them, range after range of low shifting sand- 
dunes glistened in the sun, as they stretched 
towards the unbroken horizon in every direc- 
tion. It was a strange new world to both 
boys. 

“What are you thinking so long about, Val- 
demar?” asked Karl. 

“ Oh, Karl, it was off there that our noble 
Tordenskj old’s little frigate. White Eagle ^ pur- 
sued the great Swedish man-of-war Osel, and 
made her fly in terror. There’s something 
about the very desolation of this place that I 
like,” said Valdemar. “ Something strange, 
and picturesque, and romantic, I mean, Karl. 
One feels some way — up here at the Gren — 
as though he had actually reached the world’s 
end! I’d like to come back up here often. 
Wouldn’t you, Karl? ” 

“No! There’s something I don’t like one 


126 Our Little Danish Cousin 

bit about it! I liked the Massachusetts Cape 
Cod beach at home; but that was different. 
I’d hate to have to live very long anywhere 
near here ! Romantic isn’t the right word, 
Valdemar. It’s a lonely, wild, and forsaken 
spot, with nothing at all ‘ romantic ’ about it 
in my eyes. To me it feels like the ‘ jumping 
off place,’ all right. And I’ve heard, too, Val- 
demar, that when a great storm is blowing, and 
the waves are rolling mountain high, that there 
are just terrible shipwrecks up here at this 
dangerous point! Down at the Skagen Hotel, 
the figureheads and name-boards, that they 
have collected from ships of all nations, tell 
the tale, Valdemar.” 

“ That’s true. There was the wreck of the 
Daphne, with the lives of eight of the brave 
life-saving crew lost. Sometimes there are 
twenty shipwrecks a year. But, Karl, this is 
the sea that made Vikings! Over these same 
seas, where our smoky steamers now pass, once 


Skagen 127 

danced Long Ship, Serpent and Dragon, with 
their gilded dragon-beaks gleaming in the sun- 
light! Can’t you see them, Karl? I can! 
Uncle Thor has often told me the wonderful 
Viking tales. And I’ve read about their mar- 
vellous courage and daring. The Eddas and 
Sagas of the Vikings are rich in lore of those 
fiery-hearted warriors, who sailed over the 
stormy seas in their fleets of light ash-wood 
ships, conquering far and wide, and meeting 
death light-heartedly! They say some great 
Viking chief is buried near here. Their cairns 
and barrows by thousands cover Denmark to- 
day.” 

“ Oh, I’ve read about them at home,” an- 
swered Karl, who loved courage and bravery 
as much as did any healthy American boy, but 
who loved also to tease. “ They were just a 
race of bold sea-robbers, and pirates, always 
* hatching their felonious little plans,’ always 
ready to burn and kill; and, according to his- 


128 Our Little Danish Cousin 


tory, some of the deaths they dealt out to their 
enemies were truly ‘ Vikingish.’ ” 

“ And yet, Karl, the ancient Sagas and chron- 
icles tell that it was our brave Vikings who 
first of all discovered your North America, 
and founded a colony they called Vineland, 
near where your great Harvard College is to- 
day. The Sagas say that, five hundred years 
before Columbus lived. Viking Biarne sailed 
to America with his ship Eyrar, and that, later. 
Lief, a son of Eric the Red, went over to Amer- 
ica, too.” 

“ Yes, I know. IVe read Longfellow’s poem, 
‘ The Skeleton in Armor,’ and I’ve seen the 
‘ Old Mill ’ at Newport, which was long be- 
lieved to be a Viking relic,” said Karl. “ But 
we know differently now. Nothing has been 
really proved.” 

The sun was sinking In the west as the two 
tired, but happy boys reached the outskirts of 
the straggling little village of Skagen, and 


Skagen 1 29 

trudged down the sandy road which led in and 
out among the fishermen’s huts, with their 
tarred or heavily thatched roofs, and color- 
washed walls — some of them even built from 
wreckage. 

Strings of fish, strung from pole to pole, were 

hung out to dry. Groups of sturdy fish-wives, 

here and there, with bronzed arms bare to the 

shoulder, and prettily kerchiefed heads, sat at 

tubs, dressing flounders for drying; and from 

the doorway of one hut came a voice so sweet 

and clear, crooning a quaint old Danish lullaby 

to the sleeping baby in the mother’s arms, that 

the boys paused to listen as she sang: 

Den lille Ole, med Pardplyen 
Han kender alle Smaa Folk i Byen 
Ever lille Pige, hver lille Dreng, 

De sover sodt i deres lille SengP 

“ That was a pretty song. Tell me what it 
was all about,” asked Karl, as they hurried on 
at a more rapid gait, for they were getting 
hungrier every minute. 


130 Our Little Danish Cousin 

“ Oh, it was just a little folk-song every Dane 
knows. She was singing to her baby about the 
‘ Sandman,’ or den lille Ole, as we Danes say. 
She was telling him that the ‘ Sandman, with 
his umbrella, knows all about the little folks 
in town. Each little girl — each little boy 
— they are all sleeping sweetly in their 
beds.’ ” 

They passed an old fisherman, mackintosh- 
clad, and another one in jersey and high boots, 
both hurrying towards the beach, where, in the 
gathering twilight, they could see a dim craft, 
a small fishing boat, with a few dark figures 
plying their trade, slowly rounding the promon- 
tory, its lights reflecting picturesquely in the 
water. 

“ Some day we must come back earlier, when 
more of the fishermen are home from their 
trips, and watch the crews at practice,” said 
Valdemar. “ These Skagen fishermen are true 
sons of the Vikings. It is said that there was 


Skagen 13 1 

one, once, who boasted of having saved two 
hundred lives.” 

“ I hope you didn’t worry about our getting 
home so late. Uncle Thor,” said Valdemar, at 
the supper table that night. 

“ No, but here is a letter for you.” 

“Hurrah!” exclaimed Valdemar, as he fin- 
ished reading it. “ It’s from mother. She 
says that Grandmother Ingemann has invited 
us all to spend Christmas with her down in 
Odense, and that Aage will be home for his 
vacation from the Military College, and be 
there with us, and Uncle Oscar, too, will be 
back again from America. Mother has decided 
that I am not to return to school until after 
Christmas, for she thinks that Karl and I are 
learning more by seeing our country than 
we could learn in school. And, best of all, 
mother says that I can remain up here 
studying with you. Uncle Thor, until 
September ! ” 


132 Our Little Danish Cousin 

“Hurrah!” said Karl. “No school until 
New Year’s for me I ” 

“ That means five more weeks up here with 
you, dear Uncle Thor!” continued Valdemar. 
“ Now I can entirely finish the task you gave 
me to do, the Prince Olaf statue. I’m so glad. 
Uncle Thor!” 

“ And I’m glad, too, Valdemar, for you are 
doing me great credit as a pupil. I am going 
to be very proud of that statue of yours, Val- 
demar, when it is finished.” 

These last five weeks passed for Val- 
demar much as the first five had — in the 
studio. 

“Study — diligent, earnest and honest,” 
said Uncle Thor, “ will win many honors for 
you when you are older, Valdemar. If you 
work hard, you should some day gather some 
of the roses that strew the path of the Danish 
artist, my boy.” 

“ But once you said that Denmark was al- 


Skagen 


133 


most overcrowded with art students, Uncle 
Thor, didn’t you? ” 

“ That is true. But many of them fail to 
go on with their work; they lose courage and 
drop out. Others become interested in some- 
thing else, and so leave their art studies. The 
few who do keep on usually learn all they can 
from the art schools in Denmark, and then go 
to Italy for further study.” 

“ Yes, as you did, Uncle Thor, and as Thor- 
valdsen did, too,” said Valdemar. “ Oh, Uncle 
Thor! Do you think that, when I am older, 
I may ever be able to study in Italy? ” 

“ My dear little Valdemar, anything is pos- 
sible for you, if you work hard enough,” was 
the great artist’s answer. 


CHAPTER IX 

A DANISH PEASANT WEDDING 

Karen’s fair skin was tanned so many 
shades darker than her flaxen locks that Val- 
demar and Karl hardly knew her. Far down 
on the delightful Vesterhavet,^ on the sandy 
little island of Fano, she had spent the happy 
summer-time with her mother and Aunt Amalia, 
first at the seashore, and later on the great 
farm of Peder Sorensen, near Nordby, where, 
most of the time, she had played out of doors 
in the sun and wind. 

The merry harvest season had passed soon 
after Valdemar and Karl had arrived. They 
remembered how the harvesters had laid aside 
the last sheaf, decorated it with flowers and 

‘West Sea. 

134 


A Peasant Wedding 135 

ribbons, and carried it in procession. Then had 
followed the great Host Gilde, or Harvest 
Feast, a very festive function when sturdy men 
and rosy-cheeked maidens danced hand-in-hand. 

Then, later, in the same beautiful month of 
October, had followed another folk-festival, 
and Mortin’s Day,^ when in the evening every- 
body ate “ Mortin’s Goose,” stuffed with boiled 
apples and black fruit. 

Sometimes, on some of the children’s many 
trips over to play on the beach by the West 
Sea, they had brought back pieces of amber 
washed up by the water. Karl found some 
pretty big pieces to add to his rapidly growing 
collection of Danish souvenirs, which now in- 
cluded not only the coral specimens, sea-gull’s 
eggs and wing-feathers, but Fano amber, and, 
best of all. Uncle Thor’s gift of the great white 
envelope and letter from the Royal Palace. 

Peder Sorensen was not a farmer himself. 


1 So named for Martin Luther. 


136 Our Little Danish Cousin 

Like most of the men of Fano, he was a sailor. 
It was the Fano wives who, in their pictur- 
esque though rather unbecoming dress, culti- 
vated the land, drove the cattle to pasture and 
the sheep to graze among the sand-hills, and it 
was they who milked the fine “ Red Danish ” 
cows at night, and made the far-famed “ Best 
Danish ” butter, with which they welcomed 
home their seafaring husbands. 

Fru Anna Sorensen, who had studied farm- 
ing and dairying at the Agricultural College, 
always presented a neat and attractive appear- 
ance in her dark blue dress with its one note 
of bright color down around the very hem, and 
her quaint red and blue kerchief head-dress, 
with its inevitable loose ends, which Valdemar 
graphically described as “ rabbit’s ears.” 

All the women of Fano dressed just so, ex- 
cept, of course, upon some great occasion like 
Lowisa Nielsen’s wedding, which was to take 
place in November. 


A Peasant Wedding 137 

Almost before they knew it, the short sum- 
mer had flown, and November, with its cool, 
bright days, had come, bringing Lowisa Niel- 
sen’s wedding invitation, which the Bydemand,^ 
in white trousers, topboots, and a nosegay in 
his buttonhole, carried over to the Sorensens 
on horseback. 

For propriety’s sake, Fru Sorensen allowed 
him to knock a second time before opening the 
door, then politely asked him within. 

‘‘ Greetings from the father and mother, and 
Lowisa, to yourself, your husband and guests,” 
he began, as he took the proffered seat. “ Your 
presence is truly desired at the wedding on 
Thursday next at ten o’clock. Come early, 
accompany the bridal party to the church, and 
hear their marriage service, return with them 
for dinner, remain for supper, then amuse your- 
selves with dancing and games the whole night; 
and then come again the next day, and take 
^ The “ Asking Man.” 


138 Our Little Danish Cousin 

your places from the first day, and they will 
be sure to do the same for you when wanted 
from choice, on some enjoyable occasion.” 

This unique invitation being delivered, the 
Bydemand arose as if to go, but Fru Sorensen, 
with Danish hospitality, and according to an 
old custom, quickly produced a flagon of home- 
brewed beer, and a raisin-decorated wheaten 
cake, which she offered him. 

As he finished the flagon and was about to 
leave, he turned at the door to add, as though 
an afterthought: “Then you must not forget 
to send a convenient amount of butter, 
eggS) a pail of fresh milk and two jars of 
cream.” 

“ I will gladly,” replied Fru Sorensen, as he 
departed. 

On the wedding morning, at the appointed 
time, Fru Anna Sorensen and her guests, Fru 
Ingemann, Mrs. Hoffman, and the children, 
who had never seen a peasant wedding before, 


A Peasant Wedding 139 

drove over to the great Nielsen Bonnegaard^ 
passed through the massive stone gateway, and 
into the open courtyard. They were graciously 
received by Fru Nielsen, and seated with the 
other guests upon wooden benches ranged 
around the walls of a spacious family apart- 
ment, whose polished rafters converged into a 
sharp-spiked peak at the centre. 

Lowisa, a fair-haired, blue-eyed Danish peas- 
ant maiden, to-day looked unusually attractive, 
decked out in bridal array, — a pretty but tight- 
fitting homespun, escaping the floor all around 
by several inches. From Lowisa’s richly gold- 
embroidered, tall scarlet cap, or “ hood,” as 
the Danes call it, hung pendent innumerable 
brilliant ornaments — round balls of metal and 
other fantastic dangles, all waving and twin- 
kling as she moved. Extending from the back 
were vast bows and streamers of scarlet ribbon, 
under which she wore a head-dress of very rare 

1 Literally, “ Peasant’s Domain.” 


140 Our Little Danish Cousin 

and delicate lace. And the filmy white fichu, 
which crossed over her bosom, disclosed a 
rounded throat, circled by a bangle necklace of 
gold and silver coins. 

As soon as the last guest had arrived, the 
whole party was driven over to the church, — 
the bride and her family in the forward “ rock- 
away,” the bridegroom in the next, then, in 
another, a band of rustic musicians, who, as 
soon as all the guests were seated in the differ- 
ent vehicles, struck up a lively air. 

At the proper moment, the bridegroom, 
young Nils Rasmussen, a fine-looking fellow 
of true Saxon type, took his position beside 
Lowisa at the altar. 

On returning to the house, the little church 
party was met by an eager, expectant company 
of guests, who had been invited to join them for 
the wedding-dinner. The bridal couple took 
their places at the middle of the cross-tables, 
which were arranged to form a square, after 


A Peasant Wedding 141 

the fashion of ancient banquet tables, and, 
when all the guests were seated, the serving- 
maids brought in great bowls of steaming rice, 
and placed four to each table, deftly dividing 
the contents of each into as many sections, by 
making deep cross-shaped indentures, into which 
they sprinkled cinnamon and sugar and poured 
a cupful of hot butter. Then each guest, four 
to a bowl, lifted his spoon, dipped it into the 
delicious grod, and began to eat. Meats fol- 
lowed, with wheaten cakes, highly decorated, 
and home-brewed beer of a very peculiar, rich, 
honeyed taste, and with the singing of a beau- 
tiful old Danish hymn the repast was brought 
to a close. 

Then the room was cleared and the dan- 
cing began. It was certainly a beautiful 
sight, with every one decked out in festive 
attire. 

Nie tak/^ ^ coyly refused each girl upon 
^ “ No, thank you.” 


142 Our Little Danish Cousin 

her first invitation to dance, according to an 
old law of peasant decorum, which also pre- 
vented the bridal couple, who led the dancing, 
from speaking to, or even noticing each other 
again during the entire festivities. 

As the afternoon wore on the dancing con- 
tinued. Between seven and eight, supper with- 
out rice was served, followed immediately by 
more dancing, which continued until four 
o’clock in the morning. 

By ten o’clock the next morning the fiddlers 
had again arrived, and the dancing was re- 
newed, this time with a noticeable increase in 
the number of rosy-cheeked, snowy-haired, el- 
derly couples, in quaint holiday dress of home- 
spun, with silver-buckled shoes. The bride 
continued to dance gracefully and bravely on, 
although paling cheeks told of her weari- 
ness. 

Fru Nielsen explained that the third and last 
day would only differ from the first In that there 


A Peasant Wedding 143 

would be fewer guests present, after which all 
would begin making formal calls upon the 
bride, which was considered the height of good 
form. 


CHAPTER X 


JUL-TIDE AT GRANDMOTHER INGEMANN’S 

A FRESHLY fallen, deep, feathery snow cov- 
ered Odense on Christmas Eve, and the merry 
jingle of sleigh-bells was in the air, as the lit- 
tle Ingemann party reached Fyen’s prosperous 
capital. 

Grandmother Ingemann did not live within 
the town itself, but a long drive in a big sleigh 
brought her Christmas guests within sight of 
the great old house with its many gables — all 
of the oddest stairway design — where most of 
her long, happy life had been lived. 

Although it was only the middle of the 
wintry afternoon, darkness was fast gathering, 
and from many a window on their way a can- 
dle’s soft glow shone out through the fluttering 
144 





“ ‘ Welcome ! and “ Glaedelig Jul ! ” ’ called 
OUT BOTH Grandfather and Grand- 
mother Ingemann ” 




Jul-tide 145 

snow to guide the wayfarer to warmth and 
cheer. 

“Welcome! and Glaedelig called 

out both Grandfather and Grandmother Inge- 
mann, who, in spite of the cold, had appeared 
on the door-step as the sleigh drew up. 

“ Glaedelig Jul! cried Valdemar and Karen, 
kissing their dear grandparents, as Fru Inge- 
mann introduced Aunt Amalia and cousin 
Karl. 

“ Where’s Uncle Thor, and where’s Aage? ” 
demanded Valdemar as they entered the house. 
“ And where’s Daddy? Didn’t Daddy come? ” 
was Cousin Karl’s first question. 

“ Yes, dear children, everybody’s here,” gen- 
tly answered Grandmother Ingemann, smiling 
as she glanced out of the window. 

Out rushed the children to welcome the sleigh 
that came jingling up to the door, out of which 
jumped Uncle Thor, Aage, and Uncle Oscar, 


Merry Christmas.’ 


146 Our Little Danish Cousin 

just back from the States. Such huggings and 
greetings as then took place ! Never had there 
been such a happy Christmas family reunion 
at Grandmother Ingemann’s for long years and 
years ! 

Since his mother had last seen him, Aage 
had grown into a tall, broad-shouldered young 
man who carried himself with such fine military 
bearing — and preceded all his remarks with : 
“ In my regiment ” — that Valdemar and Karl 
soon idolized him. And as for skating — well, 
he would show them something in the half hour, 
or so, that still remained before the time to 
start for the annual Christmas Eve service at 
the little church on the hill. 

Then it was Valdemar’s turn to receive com- 
pliments. Uncle Thor had great news I He 
announced that his talented little pupil’s work 
had appeared at the Fall Exhibit of the Acad- 
emy, — and had won a prize ! 

“A prize at the Academy! Oh, Uncle 


Jul-tide 147 

Thor!” exclaimed Valdemar, throwing his 
arms about his distinguished master’s neck for 
joy. “ Dear Uncle Thor! You didn’t even tell 
me that my statue was to be entered at the 
Academy Exhibit this fall ! Oh, I am so 
happy! ” 

Compliments showered upon him from 
Grandfather, and Grandmother, and from his 
own dear mother, and everybody, so fast that 
he was glad to make his escape with Aage and 
Karl, who were starting out to the frozen lake, 
with their skates. 

Aage and Valdemar, like all Danish boys, 
were famous skaters. Karl was a fair one. 
Soon the two brothers were outdoing each other 
cutting figure-eights, hearts and arrows on the 
ice, and Aage even cut the face of his sweet- 
heart. Then, as the music of a waltz Aunt 
Amalia was playing reached them, they called: 
‘‘ Come on, Karl, it’s easy,” and proceeded to 
waltz on the ice as gracefully as if on a ball- 


148 Our Little Danish Cousin 

room floor. But Karl fell flat, and felt he had 
made a miserable failure. 

Then they all came rushing into the house 
at the sight of several waiting sleighs at the 
door, which reminded them that it must be 
nearly time for the five o’clock Christmas Eve 
service. Soon every one was bundled into 
warm furs and crowded into the sleighs, serv- 
ants and all, and the happy little procession 
made its way through the falling snow to the 
church. 

As they passed through the village streets 
candle-lights gleamed from hundreds of win- 
dows, and here and there the children caught 
glimpses inside of brightly festooned little 
Christmas trees, and of sheaves of wheat or 
rye, fastened to the window-shutters out in the 
snow for the birds; and, strangest of all, Karl 
thought, were bowls of steaming hot oatmeal 
standing on many door-steps. But his mother 
explained to him that the bowls of oatmeal 


Jul-tide 149 

were placed there for the good little Jul-nissen, 
the Little People, or Christmas Nixies, the 
knee-high, little red-jacketed old men, with 
pointed red caps and long gray beards, who are 
supposed to form a part of every good Danish 
household. 

When Grandmother’s sleighing party entered 
the little whitewashed church, and took the 
places reserved for them, they found it already 
full to overflowing, and a crowd gathering out- 
side as well. 

The smiling priest in his dignified long black 
gown and deep-gauffered white Pihekrave ^ 
around his neck, joined heartily in the singing 
of hymns and carols, which were re-echoed by 
the voices of the greater throng standing out 
in the snow. Then followed the Christmas 
sermon, and the usual touching prayer “ for 
our brethren in South Jutland.” 

It was Holy Eve, the one night in all the 


I Starched ruffle, 


150 Our Little Danish Cousin 

year when services are held by candle-light, 
and the myriad wax candles, burning on the 
altar, threw a soft and mysterious light over 
the spruce and laurel boughs decorating the 
chancel. 

The light snowfall had become a blinding 
snow storm before the little procession of 
sleighs had finally reached home, where the 
great dinner of the year was awaiting them, 
with its roast goose, stuffed with prunes and 
chestnuts, its cinnamon-flavored rice pudding, 
and a famous Danish dessert called Rod Grod, 
the repast ending with nuts, Christmas cakes, 
candy and hot tea. Low over the table, illu- 
mined with a dozen tiny, candle-lighted Christ- 
mas trees, hung green festoons of laurel and 
spruce with a secreted sprig of mistletoe ; while 
at every one’s place were little mementoes, 
stuffed Nixies, snappers, and a small Danish 
flag, — except at Uncle Oscar’s, Aunt Amalia’s 
and Karl’s places, where the Stars and Stripes 


Jul-tide 151 

were thoughtfully combined with the Danne- 
hrog. 

Towards the end of the dinner Grandfather 
Ingemann arose and proposed a toast to “ our 
Danish - American guests,” — whereupon all 
arose, touched glasses and drank, uttering the 
word for health, Skaall ” Again, Grand- 
father Ingemann proposed the healths of “ Our 
illustrious Court Painter and his talented little 
pupil,” — when all again arose with their host, 
and the process was repeated. The last toast 
was “ for our absent friends,” after which 
Grandfather made a complimentary little 
speech, wishing every one joy in the years to 
come. 

Then all withdrew to the drawing-room, 
where the lights suddenly went out, and the 
folding-doors of an adjoining room were flung 
wide, where, in dazzling beauty, its topmost 
boughs brushing the rafters, stood the great 
Jule-tree. Then every one formed a circle 


152 Our Little Danish Cousin 

around the tree, and Grandfather distributed 
a basket of hymn books, from which all joined 
in singing that beautiful old Danish carol, “ 
Child is Born in Bethlehem.” 

Then, to the soft notes of a violin, all joined 
hands again, and slowly danced around the 
tree, singing as they danced another beautiful 
old carol. The servants were then called in, 
and Grandfather Ingemann called off the 
names, and distributed the presents. There 
were so many gifts for every one, from little 
Karen up to Grandfather Ingemann himself, 
that the floor was soon covered deep with the 
tissue-paper wrappings. 

When the laughter and merrymaking had 
reached Its height, there came a sharp ring at 
the door-bell, so sharp that every one paused 
In strange expectation, and little Karen rushed 
to the door after the maid. In the fast-falling 
snow stood a tall man in a green uniform and 
a three-cornered hat, who handed a great white 


Jul-tide 153 

envelope to the servant, with the words : “ To 
Valdemar Ingemann, from his Majesty, King 
Frederik,” then quickly departed. 

Karen rushed breathlessly back to her mother 
ahead of the serving-maid. “ Oh, mother! It 
was the King’s Jaeger! Valdemar, it’s for 
you 1 For you 1 ” she cried, as the awe-stricken 
maid put into the boy’s hands the great white 
envelope inscribed with the words: “To Val- 
demar Ingemann, from his Majesty, the 
King.” 

Every one looked inquiringly at every one 
else, but in the Court Painter’s eye there lurked 
a knowing twinkle. 

“Oh, mother! mother! Oh, Uncle Thor!^* 
excitedly exclaimed the little artist, dancing 
about the room. “ It’s from my friend the 
King! He says he has visited the Academy 
and seen with great pleasure my statue of little 
Prince Olaf of Norway. He congratulates me 
upon winning a prize, and, mother dear, he 


154 Little Danish Cousin 

wants to see me at the Palace, Thursday, at 
one I” 


Even before Twelfth Night had come and 
gone, the American relatives had said their 
good-byes to Copenhagen and to the Inge- 
manns, and sailed for New York. Valdemar, 
accompanied by his Uncle Thor, had made the 
call at the Palace, and been entered as a student 
at the Academy, with the King’s promise to him 
of long years of study in Rome just as soon as 
he was ready for it. So we too will bid good- 
bye to our ambitious little Danish Cousin, with 
his rose-colored dreams of the future. 


THE END. 


BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 


THE LITTLE COLONEL BOOKS 

(Trade Mark) 

By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON 
Each 1 voL, large 12mo, cloth, illustrated, per vol. . $1.50 

THE LITTLE COLONEL STORIES 

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Being three “ Little Colonel ” stories in the Cosy Comer 
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THE LITTLE COLONEL’S HOUSE PARTY 

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THE LITTLE COLONEL’S HOLIDAYS 

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RIDING 

MARY WARE: THE LITTLE COLONEL’S 

CHUM (Trade Mark) 

MARY WARE IN TEXAS 
MARY WARE’S PROMISED LAND 

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1 


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TWO LITTLE KNIGHTS OF KENTUCKY 
THE GIANT SCISSORS 
BIG BROTHER 

Special Holiday Editions 

Each one volume, cloth decorative, small quarto, $1.25 
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IN THE DESERT OF WAITING: The Legend 
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THE THREE WEAVERS: A Fairy Tale for 
Fathers and Mothers as Well as for Their 
Daughters. 

KEEPING TRYST 

THE LEGEND OF THE BLEEDING HEART 
THE RESCUE OF PRINCESS WINSOME: 

A Fairy Play for Old and Young. 

THE JESTER’S SWORD 

Each one volume, tall 16mo, cloth decorative . $0.50 

Paper boards .35 

There has been a constant demand for publication in 
separate form of these six stories which were originally 
included in six of the “ Little Colonel ' books. 

JOEL: A BOY OF GALILEE: By Annie Fellows 

Johnston. Illustrated by L. J. Bridgman. 

New illustrated edition, imiform with the Little Colonel 
Books, 1 vol., large 12mo, cloth decorative . $1 .50 

A story of the time of Christ, which is one of the author’s 
best-known books. 

2 


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THE LITTLE COLONEL GOOD TIMES BOOK 

Uniform in size with the Little Colonel Series . $1.60 

Bound in white kid (morocco) and gold . . 3.00 

Cover design and decorations by Peter Verberg. 
Published in response to many inquiries from readers 
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a “ Good Times Book ” such as Betty kept. 

THE LITTLE COLONEL DOLL BOOK 

Large quarto, boards $1.50 

A series of “ Little Colonel ” dolls. There are many of 
them and each has several changes of costume, so that 
the happy group can be appropriately clad for the re- 
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ASA HOLMES; Or, At the Cross-Roads. By 
Annie Fellows Johnston. 

With a frontispiece by Ernest Fosbery. 

Large 16mo, cloth, gilt top $1.00 

“ ‘ Asa Holmes; or. At the Cross-Roads ’ is the most 
delightful, most sympathetic and wholesome book that 
has been published in a long while.” — Boston Times. 

TRAVELERS FIVE: ALONG LIFE’S HIGH- 
WAY. By Annie Fellows Johnston. 

With an introduction by Bliss Carman, and a frontis- 
piece by E. H. Garrett. 

Cloth decorative $1.25 

“ Mrs. Johnston’s . . . are of the character that cause 
the mind to grow gravely meditative, the eyes to shine 
with tender mist, and the heart strings to stir to strange, 
sweet music of human sympathy.” — Los Angeles Graphic. 
THE RIVAL CAMPERS; Or, The Adventures 
of Henry Burns. By Ruel Perley Smith. 

Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . $1.50 

A story of a party of typical American lads, courageous, 
alert, and athletic, who spend a summer camping on an 
island off the Maine coast. 

THE RIVAL CAMPERS AFLOAT; Or, The 

Prize Yacht Viking. By Ruel Perley Smith. 

Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . $1.50 

This book is a continuation of the adventures of “ The 
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3 


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By Ruel Perley Smith. 

Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50 

‘‘ As interesting ashore as when afloat.” — The Interior. 

THE RIVAL CAMPERS AMONG THE 

OYSTER PIRATES; Or, Jack Harvey’s Adven- 
tures. By Ruel Perley Smith. Illustrated . $1.50 

“ Just the type of book which is most popular with lads 
who are in their early teens.” — The Philadelphia Item. 

A TEXAS BLUE BONNET 

By Emilia Elliott. 

12mo, illustrated ^ $1.50 

“ The book’s heroine Blue Bonnet has the very finest 
kind of wholesome, honest lively girlishness and cannot 
but make friends with every one who meets her through 
the book as medium.” — Chicago Inter-Ocean. 

BLUE BONNET^S RANCH PARTY 

A Sequel to “ A Texas Blue Bonnet.” By Emilia 
Elliott. 

12mo, illustrated $1.50 

The new story begins where the first volume leaves off 
and takes Blue Bonnet and the “We Are Seven Club ” 
to the ranch in Texas. The tables are completely turned: 
Blue Bonnet is here in her natural element, while her 
friends from Woodford have to learn the customs and 
traditions of another world. 

THE GIRLS OF FRIENDLY TERRACE 

Or, Peggy Raymond’s Success. By Harriet Lum- 
mis Smith. 

12mo, illustrated $1.50 

This is a book that will gladden the hearts of many 
girl readers because of its charming air of comradeship 
and reality. It is a very interesting group of girls who 
live on Friendly Terrace and their good times and other 
times are graphically related by the author, who shows 
a sympathetic knowledge of girl character. 

4 


BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 


FAMOUS LEADERS SERIES 

By CHARLES H. L. JOHNSTON 
Each, large VZmo, cloth decorative, illustrated . $1.50 

FAMOUS CAVALRY LEADERS 

Biographical sketches, with anecdotes and reminiscences, 
of the heroes of history who were leaders of cavalry. 

“ More of such books should be written, books that 
acquaint young readers with historical personages in a 
pleasant i^ormal way.’’ — N. Y. Sun. 

FAMOUS INDIAN CHIEFS 

In this book Mr. Johnston gives interesting sketches of 
the Indian braves who have figured with prominence in 
the history of our own land, including Powhatan, the 
Indian Csesar; Massasoit, the friend of the Puritans; 
Pontiac, the red Napoleon; Tecumseh, the famous war 
chief of the Shawnees; Sitting Bull, the famous war chief 
of the Sioux; Geronimo, the renowned Apache Chief, etc. 

FAMOUS PRIVATEERSMEN AND ADVEN- 
TURERS OF THE SEA 

In this volume Mr. Johnston tells interesting stories 
about the famous sailors of fortune. There are tales of 
Captain Otway Bums, patriot, privateer and legislator; 
Woodes Rogers, scourge of the South Sea trade; Captain 
William Death, wolf of the ocean; and of many others. 

FAMOUS SCOUTS 

“ It is the kind of a book that will have a great fascina- 
tion for boys and young men and while it entertains them 
it will also present valuable information in regard to those 
who have left their impress upon the history of the country. 
— The New London Day. 

FAMOUS FRONTIERSMEN AND HEROES 
OF THE BORDER 

This book is devoted to a description of the adventurous 
lives and stirring experiences of many pioneer heroes 
who were prominently identified with the opening of the 
great west. The stories of these border heroes are graphic- 
ally presented, and their desperate battles with Indians, 
border desperadoes, and wild beasts are splendidly told. 

5 


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BEAUTIFUL JOE’S PARADISE ; Or, The Island 
OF Brotherly Love. A Sequel to “ Beautiful Joe.” 
By Marshall Saunders, author of “ Beautiful Joe.” 
One vol., library 12mo, cloth illustrated . . $1.50 

“ This book revives the spirit of ‘ Beautiful Joe ’ capi- 
tally. It is fairly riotous with fun, and is about as unusual 
as anything in the animal book line that has seen the 
light.” — Philadelphia Item. 

’TILDA JANE. By Marshall Saunders. 

One voL, 12mo, fully illustrated, cloth decorative, $1.50 
“ I cannot think of any better book for children than 
this. I commend it unreservedly.” — Cyrus T. Brady. 
’TILDA JANE’S ORPHANS. A sequel to “ ’Tilda 
Jane.” By Marshall Saunders. 

One vol., 12mo, fully illustrated, cloth decorative, $1.50 
’Tilda Jane is the same original, dehghtful girl, and as 
fond of her animal pets as ever. 

’TILDA JANE IN CALIFORNIA. A Sequel to 
“ ’Tilda Jane,” and “ ’Tilda Jane’s Orphans.” By 
Marshall Saunders. 

One vol., 12mo, fully illustrated, cloth decorative, $1.50 
The scene of the story is sunny California, where the 
heroine, ’Tilda Jane, an Eastern girl of high resolves and 
warm impulses, goes on a long visit to distant relatives. 
Many of the other beloved characters in the previous 
“ ’Tilda Jane ” books are introduced in this story. 

THE STORY OF THE GRAVELYS. By 

Marshall Saunders, author of “ Beautiful Joe’s 
Paradise,” “ ’Tilda Jane,” etc. 

Library 12mo, cloth decorative. Illustrated by E. B. 
Barry . . . . . . . . . $1.50 

Here we have the haps and mishaps, the trials and 
triumphs, of a delightful New England family. 

BORN TO THE BLUE. By Florence Kimball 
Russel. 

12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.25 

The atmosphere of army life on the plains breathes on 
every page of this delightful tale. The boy is the son of a 
captain of U. S. cavalry stationed at a frontier post in the 
days when our regulars earned the gratitude of a nation. 

a 


Z. C, PAGE COMPANY'S 


IN WEST POINT GRAY 

By Florence Kimball Russel. 

12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50 

“ Singularly enough one of the best books of the year 
for boys is written by a woman and deals with life at West 
Point. The presentment of life in the famous military 
academy whence so many heroes have graduated is realistic 
and enjoyable .” — New York Sun. 

THE SANDMAN: HIS FARM STORIES 

By William J. Hopkins. With fifty illustrations by 
Ada Clendenin Williamson. 

Large 12mo, decorative cover . . . . $1.50 

“ An amusing, original book, written for the benefit of 
very small children. It should be one of the most popular 
of the year’s books for reading to small children.” — 
Buffalo Express. 

THE SANDMAN: MORE FARM STORIES 

By William J. Hopkins. 

Large 12mo, decorative cover, fully illustrated $1.50 
Mr. Hopkins’s first essay at bedtime stories met with 
such approval that this second book of “ Sandman ” tales 
was issued for scores of eager children. Life on the farm, 
and out-of-doors, is portrayed in his inimitable manner. 

THE SANDMAN: HIS SHIP STORIES 

By William J. Hopkins, author of “ The Sandman: 
His Farm Stories,” etc. 

Large 12mo, decorative cover, fully illustrated $1.50 
“ Children call for these stories over and over again.” — 
Chicago Evening Post. 

THE SANDMAN: HIS SEA STORIES 

By William J. Hopkins. 

Large 12mo, decorative cover, fully illustrated $1.50 
Each year adds to the popularity of this unique series 
of stories to be read to the little ones at bed time and at 
other times. 

•7 


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THE DOCTOR’S LITTLE GIRL 

By Marion Ames Taggart. 

One vol., library 12mo, illustrated . . . $1.50 

A thoroughly enjoyable tale of a little girl and her com- 
rade father, written in a delightful vein of sympathetic 
comprehension of the child’s point of view. 

“ The characters are strongly drawn with a life-like real- 
ism, the incidents are well and progressively sequenced, 
and the action is so well timed that the interest never 
slackens.” — Boston Ideas. 

SWEET NANCY 

The Further Adventures of the Doctor’s Little 
Girl. By Marion Ames Taggart. 

One vol., hbrary 12mo, illustrated . . . $1.50 

In the new book, the author tells how Nancy becomes 
in fact “ the doctor’s assistant,” and continues to shed 
happiness around her. 

NANCY, THE DOCTOR’S LITTLE PART- 
NER 

By Marion Ames Taggart. 

One vol., library 12mo, illustrated . . . $1.50 

In Nancy Porter, Miss Taggart has created one of the 
most lovable child characters in recent years. In the 
new story she is the same bright and cheerful little maid. 

NANCY PORTER’S OPPORTUNITY 

By Marion Ames Taggart. 

One vol., library 12mo, illustrated . . . $1.50 

Already as the “ doctor’s partner ” Nancy Porter has 
won the affection of her readers, and in the same lovable 
manner she continues in the new book to press the key- 
notes of optimism and good-will. 

ALMA AT HADLEY HALL 

By Louise Breitenbach. 

One vol., 12mo, illustrated $1.50 

“ This delightful tale of boarding-school life is one that 
cannot fail to appeal to the lover of good things in girls’ 
books. It will take rank for its naturalness and truth.” 
— Portland Press. 

S 


BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 


GABRIEL AND THE HOUR BOOK 

By Evaleen Stein. 

Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and deco- 
rated in colors by Adelaide Everhart . . . $1.00 

Gabriel was a loving, patient, httle French lad, who 
assisted the monks in the long ago days, when all the books 
were written and illuminated by hand, in the monasteries. 

“ No works in juvenile fiction contain so many of the 
elements that stir the hearts of children and grown-ups as 
well as do the stories so admirably told by this author.” 
— Louisville Daily Courier. 

A LITTLE SHEPHERD OF PROVENCE 

By Evaleen Stein. 

Cloth, 12mo, illustrated by Diantha H. Marlowe $1.25 
“ The story should be one of the influences in the life 
of every child to whom good stories can be made to 
appeal.” — Public Ledger. 

THE LITTLE COUNT OF NORMANDY 

By Evaleen Stein. 

Cloth, 12mo, illustrated by John Goss . . $1.25 

“ This touching and pleasing story is told with a wealth 
of interest coupled with enlivening descriptions of the 
country where its scenes are laid and of the people there- 
of.” — Wilmington Every Evening. 

ALYS-ALL-ALONE 

By Una Macdonald. 

Cloth, 12mo, illustrated $1.50 

“ This is a most delightful, well-written, heart-stirring, 
happy ending story, which will gladden the heart of many 
a reader.” — Scranton Times. 

ALYS IN HAPPYLAND. A Sequel to ‘‘ Alys-All 

Alone.” By Una Macdonald. 

Cloth, 12mo, illustrated ^ $1.50 

“ The book is written with that taste and charm that 
prepare younger readers for the appreciation of good litera- 
ture when they are older.” — JJhicago Tribune. 


L. a PAGE COMPANY'S 


the red feathers. By G. E. T. Roberts. 

Cloth decorative, illustrated . . . .11.50 

“ The Red Feathers ” tells of the remarkable adventures 
of an Indian boy who lived in the Stone Age, many years 
ago, when the world was young. 

FLYING plover. By G. E. Theodore Roberts. 

Cloth decorative. Illustrated by Charles Livingston 

Bull 

Squat-By-The-Fire is a very old and wise Indian who 
lives alone with her grandson, “ Flying Plover, ' to whom 
she tells the stories each evening. 

COMRADES OF THE TRAILS. By G. E. 


Theodore Roberts. . 

Cloth decorative. Illustrated by Charles Livingston 

Bull • • . • 

The story of a fearless young English lad, Dick Ramsey, 
who, after the death of his father, crosses the seas and 
takes up the life of a hunter in the Canadian forests. 

MARCHING WITH MORGAN. How Donald 
Lovell Became a Soldier of the Revolution. 

By John V. Lane. 

Cloth decorative, illustrated . . . • . 

This is a splendid boy’s story of the expedition of 
Montgomery and Arnold against Quebec. 

RODNEY, THE RANGER Ob, With Daniel 
Morgan on Trail and Battlefield. By John V. 
Lane. ^ 

Cloth decorative, illustrated . . . . 3^i.ou 

Young Rodney Allison, although but fifteen years of 
age, played a man’s part in the troublous times pre* 
ceding the American Revolution and in the War itseu. 

CHINESE PLAYMATES 


By Norman H. Pitman. 

Small cloth 12mo, illustrated . • \ 

A worth-while, happy little story about two little 
Chinese boys, Lo-Lo and Ta-Ta, and the strange fortunes 
that befell them when they wandered from home. 


10 




JUN 20 1912 



>41 









